Doing Too Much
Do three things well, not ten things badly.
-David Segrove (Author)
I love being productive. I love lists and planners and checking things off.
I keep lists for everything from work to groceries and errands to special projects. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter...I’ve got a list somewhere for it.
I recently found myself a little paralyzed with my obsession with lists and just how much I needed to do staring back at me. Lists are an excellent way to gather thoughts and stay organized but when they become an agent of stress versus progress, it’s definitely time to reassess.
About a month ago, before the holidays really kicked off, I lost my work planner at work (ironically) and after hours of moping and trying to retrace my steps, I finally gave up the search. I didn’t have much choice but to start over so I found a cheap spiral notebook and started writing my list of to-do’s again. (heavy sigh)
The funny thing is, this new list was much shorter than the list in my lost planner. I couldn't remember everything but what I could remember ended up being the more critical and important to-do’s that were top of mind for me.
Surprisingly, as time passed, nothing disastrous happened because I forgot the other tasks in my original planner.
No mountains crumbled into the sea.
The sky didn’t turn red with meteorites.
The ground didn’t implode.
Nothing blew up even though there were definitely some things that went undone due to my less-than-stellar memory.
The loss of my planner ended up being a bit of a blessing because it forced me to think about what was actually critical. It was a poignant reminder that not everything we think we need to do is actually important and sometimes the stress or frustration we feel sometimes can likely be self imposed from a feeling of the need to do everything.
Losing my planner reminded me that it’s ok (and healthy) to let things go from time to time.
Aji