OPTED Magazine

Yesterday was one of those days.  Despite waking up before 7:00am on both weekend mornings, come Monday morning I had to practically roll myself onto the floor to wake myself up!  The morning madness scramble resulted in several items being left behind and despite all my preparation the night before, it couldn’t address the curve balls I was thrown throughout the day.

I stepped off the train to head home feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.  My to do list was not even a quarter of the way finished and the remaining tasks felt huge and unmanageable.  I mentally scheduled the remaining few hours of the evening in my head repeatedly, and then again on paper, but not only did I lack the motivation for even the fun projects, it wasn’t humanly possible to cross everything off my list.

One thing I’ve learned from my recent introduction to GTD is the importance of not having a daily to do list — with unexpected challenges being thrown at you throughout the day in your personal and work life, continually rolling over tasks to the following day and rewriting a daily list is both inefficient and demoralizing.

However, my problem last night is that these tasks really were “day specific” tasks!  I was on a schedule: for my blog, for my exercise program, and for cleaning the house in preparation for a house guest late this week!

And I realized the importance of taking a step back, reevaluating, and simplifying to gain perspective.

The consequences of being stubborn

After half an hour of fretting over my to do list and how I could possible cram all of it into one evening, I realized I was fooling myself and making myself stressed when all I really needed to do was look at the big picture.  I recalled the numerous instances where I have been in this position and how I’ve responded:

• Frantic frenzy of racing through my tasks (and doing a poor job, sacrificing quality for the sake of completion)
• Plodding through, feeling miserable, and stubbornly finishing everything into the wee hours of the morning (only to feel drained, sleepy and exhausted the next day)
• Giving up entirely and doing none of it (opting for a bowl of ice cream and TV to for get my failure — creating guilt shortly thereafter)

None of these strategies worked.  None of them were fulfilling.  Last night was almost the repeat of my previous mistakes, but I managed to save the evening, and my sanity, by looking at the big picture.

How to simplify and regroup

My 5 step process ended up with a successful result and I encourage you to adapt this process for the next time your day derails, your time is running short, and you need to regroup:

1. What’s most important to me? — I keep a list saved in my portable collection tool, as well as posted in my home and at work,that reminds me of the 5 most important things in my life.  I’ve spent considerable time evaluating and pairing down this list (which I also do as a New Year’s resolution) and have faith in my decision for my top five.  I spent 10 seconds looking at that list and then consulted my to do list again.  Anything that didn’t fit into this prioritization method that was not vital to my life was immediately dismissed for the day.
2. Can I renegotiate? – Life and our lists are nothing but a series of commitments we’ve made to ourselves (and sometimes others).  Losing weight, keeping a clutter free home, learning a language, or volunteering in our communities are all good examples.  But many of those can be renegotiated with ourselves as a compromise to keep the focus on what we feel is important.  One task I evaluated last night was my weight loss program, and yesterday that included a visit to the gym.  While, this task matched one of my top five important things (losing weight and getting healthy), it could be renegotiated.  I could rationally change my commitment to myself and schedule a gym visit tomorrow, instead of today, and open up an hour of time.  I practiced this step for the rest of my list.
3. Tomorrow is equally as important — I have a commitment to myself that I will not compromise, which is a 30 minute period before I retire to bed to complete my evening routine.  My thinking is that skipping this important part of my day will only negatively impact the following day, creating a frantic and unorganized schedule that will only contribute to my stress level.  I set a deadline for the latest I was willing to delay sleep to give myself a rested slumber, subtracted 30 minutes and gave myself that remaining time for completing my tasks.
4. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize — the tasks remaining on my list that addressed the five most important areas of my life (and could not be renegotiated) were written down on a slip of paper in the order of importance.  I evaluated factors such as time it takes to complete, most likely to make my life easier in the future if I completed this now, what do I enjoy doing, and what tasks, if I didn’t do them, would result in a missed opportunity I couldn’t gain back.  When my time limit was reached and it was time to do my half hour prep for tomorrow before going to sleep, what was completed was completed, and the rest was for another day.
5. Letting it go — Every other task on my list had to be a casualty and I had to accept the reality that there will always be more to clean, always be more to read and write, and tomorrow is another day.  I couldn’t let my frustration or misplaced feeling of failure impact another day (if I can help it!) and releasing that negativity before I crawled into bed with the love of my life would make for a happier me.

It may sound overwhelming to complete this five step process, but believe it or not, it can be done in under 5 minutes, and the time trade off with the initial to do list is time well spent.

When was the last time your day derailed, and how did you cope?  Are there any strategies you have used that I didn’t mention?  Since we all are likely to face this situation in the future, any advice in the comments is encouraged!

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3. Completing essential tasks on your to do list first
4. How to maximize your day with only 24 hours