Is your To Do List getting longer by the day? Are you so overcommitted that you don’t feel like you’ll ever get time for yourself? Whether you realize it or not, every time you say “yes” to something, you are saying “no” to something else. If you say “yes” to working late, you could be saying “no” to going for a walk, playing with your kids or pets, or cooking a healthy meal instead of going through the drive-through at your favorite fast food place. The truth of the matter is that we put a lot of things on our To Do List that are not in line with our values and are simply not that important. We may be spending most of our time doing what is urgent or expedient at the expense of accomplishing what is really important to our physical and mental health, relationships, career, family, and other important aspects of our lives. Do you know what is really important to you? If not, put that task at the top of your To Do List! And, contact me for some tools to help you identify your values.

I challenge you to take a good, hard look at your To Do List. Can you delete any items right off the bat? If so, go for it. Can you delegate any of the remaining items? It may take time to teach someone else how to perform a task, but if you can permanantly eliminate that item from your To Do List, the extra time you put in now will pay off in the future. Review the remaining items and prioritize them in order of most to least importance. Next, take the bold step of crossing off the bottom third. Why spend your precious time doing anything that you admit is not that important?

At this point, you should be left with a more manageable list. If you are still overwhelmed by the size of your To Do List, read my earlier post on how to overcome overwhelm.