Rethink your to-do list & live a life that lights you up

Do you feel like you always have 10,000 things to do?  Between family needs, work demands, bucket list dreams and the general day to day, the list feels endless.  And that leads to the feeling of overwhelm.  Which leads to basically throwing in the towel and just tackling whatever is most in your face.

With that tactic, the nice to dos and the soul-refueling things tend to fall by the wayside, still just enough on your radar to add to your guilt and overwhelm, but not enough to actually get you to prioritize them.

So, you get stuck in this ugly cycle of never feeling like you get enough done, never getting enough of the ‘right’ things done and feeling overwhelmed by it all.  Never getting to the point where you remember to do you, to live a life that lights you up.

If this is you, I have a tip to help tame the overwhelm and even have a little bit of fun along the way.  Want to see me talk through this tutorial, check out the video here.

Getting Started

To do this you will need-

·       a few sheets of plain paper

·       scissors

·       a fun pen or marker 

For the organizing part you’ll need either-

·       tackboard + thumbtacks or

·       poster board or large sheet of paper + tape or

·       another sheet of plain paper

I use printer paper because it’s easy to grab and I feel like I don’t have to censor myself because my to-do isn’t ‘worthy’ of writing down. 

Also grab a pair of scissors and a fun pen or marker, because why not.  If your kids are with you, just grab extra and let them color next to you.

Take the paper and cut it in half, and half again and half again and again until you have a pile of approximately 2” x 3” rectangles.  Sticky notes may make it easier for some of the steps, but I feel that them all sticking together makes it more frustrating to organize and really see what gets dumped out.  Plus it’s just a little more crafty getting to cut up the paper.

Brain Dump

We are starting with a brain dump. Take your fun pen and the stack of paper and just start writing out the list of all the things on your to-do list.  You can have an area of your life you want to focus on, but don’t let that limit you to writing down what comes up.  I was focused on all of the business-related to-do’s because that was the source of my overwhelm, but I wrote down every bit that came out. 

Maybe your focus is home life or work stuff or back-to-school readiness.  Literally everything you hold in your mind and soul, including the less fun things like scheduling the dentist visit.  Naming the things helps your mind breathe.  Put one to-do per piece, just writing out what flows or comes up, big or small. 

If you want to do the brain dump first, take a full sheet of paper start brain dumping on there.  Once you have exhausted the first round of things, start writing them out on the small rectangles of paper you just cut up. 

The great thing is that this technique doesn’t even need to be done in one sitting.  In fact, it’s probably better over a couple short stretches so that you can let new things come to the surface.  The brain dump alone is a worthwhile exercise because it helps to start name all the things swirling in your head and gets them written down, so you don’t have to hold onto them in your mind.  But let’s not stop here.  Let’s start to tame the overwhelm.

Tame the Overwhelm

This is where you are going to need some space to spread out a little.  Next, take your pile of paper and start laying them down on the floor or table, starting to figure out some groupings that make sense for you.  Place things that kind of go together in different spots on front of you.  Group things based on the type of headspace or activity instead of the area that it is coming from. 

Since I was tackling the business overwhelm, mine loosely fell into phone calls I needed to make, writing activities I needed to focus on, design stuff I needed to be creative with, Etsy shop + Pinterest stuff, but also personal growth stuff I wanted to keep working on (including books I want to read), family task stuff and summer fun I still want to fit in.  Calling and making well-visit appointments got put together with calling some places about potential workshops.  Writing blog posts went in the same area as writing Instagram captions and journaling and working on my novel.  When I could align things based on the type of energy they required, it helped me see things in a new way.

Make connections and organize

Spend some time playing with the papers and laying them out.  Once you have all your items into the different groupings in front of you, you have to put it in a more moveable spot.  Guessing you might need your table space back before all these things get done.  You have a couple options on how to proceed.

I dug out an old tackboard and transferred the piles to that, tacking them up in the same groupings as I had on the floor.  You could also use a piece of posterboard or a piece of cardboard from recycling and tape them up.  If that doesn’t work for you, you can grab another full sheet of paper and start writing out the items as mini lists.  However you transfer your to-do’s, keep the same groupings and roughly the same layout as you had on the floor or table.  Your mind will hold onto that visual, so capturing it on your tackboard, posterboard or paper will reinforce that memory.  If you are rewriting them onto a piece of paper, carefully collect all the pieces of paper and KEEP them!  Grab an envelope and put them all in there.

Now that you have all of the things that have been weighing down your mind named and organized, take a minute and see how that feels.  Take a deep breath or two and clear any stress that has come up going through the process.  I hope you feel like you can start to see the forest through the trees.

Prioritize

Take a look at your brain dump and decide what are two or three things that need priority.  Remember that you can’t tackle all the things at once.  Anything that gets done this way is often done poorly or causes more stress than if you did them one at a time.  Think of the mess that a traffic jam causes.  When the cars or tasks flow, they can zipper into the gaps and everything keeps moving.  Decide what things are really longer-term to-do things or something that can fill into empty spaces as the time sensitive ones get done. 

For example, I really want to get my monthly family photo Chatbooks caught up (I’m 8 months behind).  But if I’ve already pushed them off this long, waiting a couple more weeks isn’t going to hurt anything. 

Call it strategic procrastination. 

If you hadn’t created this brain dump and gotten this far, that task would still be jammed in your head with a TBD date for getting it done. 

Giving yourself permission to put it off a little longer with a plan for when it will get done also eases the overwhelm.  Recognizing that creating my photobooks is a great task I can do when I feel like sitting with my phone but need to get off social media helps me plan when I can get it done without it really taking up any extra time.

Also seeing that some things just aren’t something to worry about in this season is helpful.  I have a grouping of things that are important, but not urgent.  And really if I did them right now, I wouldn’t really enjoy it because I would feel the weight of all of the more urgent things that need done.  They are safely noted on my board and when I revisit it, I can start to strategically procrastinate them until next week, month or season.  Maybe I’ll see that it’s not really as important as I thought it was, so it can actually just come off the list.

For your bucket list dreams that you wrote down, start thinking how you can start taking action on them.  Add a couple pieces of paper with some actionable steps and place them in the appropriate grouping.  Seeing that you can breakdown your dreams into actions and taking action will help you get there.  Taking a dream vacation starts with researching locations or figuring out costs.  Once you know that, then you can work on a timeline or budget.  Wanting to figure out how to feel like you are ‘more than a mom’ begins with reading a personal growth book or finding a resource to help guide you. 

For the items that needed priority, I took a different colored thumbtack and put a literal pin in them, so I could help keep my focus.  You could put a sticker on them or put a different colored marker dot on them.  Another way would be to pull them off the board or take them out of your envelope and put them right in front of you.  The idea is that it is a visual, tangible reminder of what you are focusing on, and to not get overwhelmed with all the things that are still on the list to do.  You can be more efficient if you focus on what needs done first and let the rest wait their turn.

Use Momentum

Having the list split up based on similar tasks will help you get things done, keeping momentum, and avoiding switch tasking.  Take a moment to consider what you feel like doing so you don’t add that resistance.  Are you in the mood to do a task around the house?  Avoid the world and sit with your phone?  Or jump in the car and do an errand?  Or if you prioritized getting an appointment made, can you also do the other two calls on your list while you are in that mode? 

I got all my well visits scheduled when my husband asked me about what our vision insurance was.  Since I already grabbed my phone to see if I had it in my notes for the eye doctor, I went ahead and called them and made the appointment.  And since I was already looking at my calendar to make that appointment, I called and got my dentist and annual physical scheduled.  And one of my priority tasks was calling and setting up pre-school/day care tours.  So I did that.  Done, done, done and done. 

Convincing myself to do each of the calls separately would have taken so much more time.  Grouping them all together by activity (scheduling appointment) even though they are not all related by topic (health and child care) knocked them all out quickly (about 15 minutes) with far less mental effort than if I switched over to that mindset for each one.

Handling New Things

As new to-do items come up, write them down and put them on the board.  Make new groupings if you need.  Since the to-do list of life never ends, it is really important to celebrate what you have done rather than what you still have ahead of you.  When you get things done, take those slips of paper and put them in a place where you can see them add up.  Celebrate that progress!  I picked a small glass container to drop the papers into for now but feel confident I will need a bigger one soon as I keep making progress on my list.  And I know you will too! 

When you are feeling like nothing is getting done, take a look back at that jar and remind yourself that you are making progress.  And if it doesn’t feel like the progress you want to make, start brain dumping out ideas for what would help make you feel that way and put it on the board.

If you want to see me put these tips into action, check out the tutorial video.  I really hope this helps you tame the overwhelm and rethink your to-do list so that it serves as a tool to help you live a life that lights you up. 

Have you ever organized your to-do list this way?  If you found this tip helpful, or you gave it a try I’d love to know what you thought.  Leave a comment or send me a message at hello@fireflyscout.com 

And if want more ideas on how reclaim your day or to tackle the overwhelm, check out this blog post or follow on Instagram for daily tips and inspiration. I love seeing you grow your glow!

If you like tips like these, check out my guide for Reclaiming Your Day or find me on Instagram. Thanks for visiting!

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Stephanie Rose is a mom, wife, business owner and a forever student in finding ways to know herself better. She acts as guide for your own journey, sharing insights, tools and practices to help you remember your magic and live a life that lights you up. Sign up for her newsletter and check out her free resources.

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