Pick One Thing

I don’t know what has happened over the years! I used to be able to knock out a 20+ item “to do” list in a day and feel that sense of accomplishment. Woo hoo!  And I remember having almost laser beam focus on what I needed to get done and how my day would be organized.

Flash forward to now…I swear there are days when I can’t even remember what I told myself 10 minutes ago that I needed to put on a to-do list, much less actually create the to-do list and a plan for getting them all done! And yet I feel the weight of knowing I have many things, both professionally and personally, that need to get done and commitments to honor.  Ugh…where did all of that energy and focus go?!

In the last couple of years, there seem to be more days when my mind sort of “spins”, bouncing from one “to do” to the next and then back again, never actually landing on a place to start.  And when I’m in that mode, I have this awareness that I am “wasting” precious time trying to get my mind to stop spinning and get my to-dos organized…it just makes my stress response worse!  Sometimes I’ll actually start one thing, get distracted and jump to another one, and another one and never make progress on any of them. At work, this may mean I end up with 7 different files open in varying stages of progress and at home it usually means piles of stuff everywhere!

One of the things I’ve been trying to do lately when I’m “spinning” is to change my environment in some way to help quiet the noise and try to shift my perspective a bit - like taking a short walk or standing outside in the sun for a few minutes, listening to some background music, or sitting in a different chair.  And I remind myself of something a colleague would often tell me…just pick one thing.   So I make myself pick one task, usually a small one that is easily achievable like sending an email or prepping some veggies for dinner, and I focus just on that one task until it’s done. It gives me a much-needed sense of accomplishment when I finish it.

And most times, it’s then easier to pick a second thing to work on or actually make a to-do list (which I try to keep short and achievable).  But there are definitely times when the spinning and noise comes back. In those times, I’ll try to repeat the same process but when it’s clear that it’s just not going to work, I have been trying to give myself some grace and tell myself that what I accomplished today was good enough. Tomorrow is another day. 

The next time you find yourself “spinning” or whatever your version of that is…try picking just one achievable thing to focus on and see if it helps.