Get ready to tame your to-do list!
Do you feel overwhelmed by your to-do list? Does it seem to only grow longer – not shorter? Do you wake up in the morning feeling a sense of anxiety, dread, or resentment at everything on your list?
First, I want to acknowledge how you’re feeling and let you know you’re not alone! There were times when my to-do list was several pages long, and that was just my work tasks!
Start by reducing the feelings of overwhelm
Before we start talking about how to tackle your to-do list, let’s first talk about getting out of the overwhelm.
I know this sounds counter-intuitive – we tend to think – once my to-do list starts getting smaller I’ll be less overwhelmed.
But the thing is that when you’re overwhelmed, you’ve shifted into a Sympathetic Nervous System response – often called the fight, flight, or freeze response. And a physiological fact is that in this state your logic and reasoning centers in the brain go off-line. You can learn more about your nervous system here.
In a nutshell, what’s really important to keep in mind is the more overwhelmed you are, the less efficient you are. Because you’re not able to think clearly and creatively to find solutions to problems or easier ways to take care of things.
So before we dive into addressing your to-do list, let’s take three audible exhales together. These slow conscious breaths are a signal to your body to shift out of sympathetic nervous system and into your parasympathetic nervous system which is your rest and digest mode. And that shift brings your logic and reasoning centers back online and ramps up your creative problem solving.
You can breathe along with me in the podcast audio or using this guided audio which includes just the audible exhale:
Ok, hopefully you’re feeling a little less overwhelmed and a little calmer after those breaths. If you need to pause this podcast and take a few more, please do it!
Clarifying your unique priorities
Now let’s start talking about your to-do list. You might have heard me talk about the importance of getting clarity on your unique priorities. (It’s one of the 4 C’s to Calming Your Inner Critic!) And maybe you’ve even worked through the Core Values exercise.
There’s one really key thing to keep in mind when we talk about core values and to-do lists. Your core values are NOT society’s values – they’re something that’s unique to you.
So with that in mind, let’s take a moment and objectively look at your to-do list. How many of the items on there are there because they’re important to someone else – but not to you. Or because you think they should be important to you.
Aligning your to-do list with your unique priorities
Grab your to-do list and something to write with. If your to-do list isn’t written out, do it now! Pause this and please go do it!
You can keep your to-do list digitally or hand written, but if you’re relying on your memory for your to-do list, it will add extra stress and overwhelm because not only do you have to take care of each task, you’ve also add the additional task of remembering all the tasks!
With your to-do list in hand, go through each item and put a star next to anything that doesn’t authentically feel important to you.
In addition to things that are important to someone else but not you, if you find yourself saying any of these key words add a star: should, ought to, need to, have to, or supposed to.
Now go through your list again and add a heart to anything you find yourself using these key words with: want to, excited to, get to, or looking forward to.
If you’re feeling some self judgment start to surface, know that’s totally normal. Those things with stars often carry a lot of emotional baggage. Before we keep working with your to-do list, I want to share a story.
Your priorities are as unique are you are!
I came home from running errands with a few plants I rescued from the clearance shelf at a local big box store. This isn’t something special, I regularly show up with yet another plant that needs a little extra love.
When Adam saw me walk in the door, he responded with – “ohhhhh – more plants – okaaaaay”. And I cheerfully smiled, clarified they were outdoor plants, and then invited him smell the incredible fragrance they have!
Adam doesn’t understand why I keep coming home with more plants. Because a passion for gardening (indoors and outdoors) just isn’t his thing. It’s mine.
And that’s totally ok!
While we see eye-to-eye on a lot of the big things in life, we also each have our own passion projects.
Having unique priorities and core values is what makes each and every one of us interesting. We get to learn from each other and to discover new things we would not have otherwise explored.
Identifying your core values and then finding ways to build your life around them is how you create a life you’re excited to wake up to each morning. Part of that process also means identifying what isn’t one of your core values.
The exercise we’re doing with the to-do list is a micro exercise in identifying your core values. It’s helping you recognize where things feel in or out of alignment.
Now let’s start taming your to-do list!
Now let’s go back to your to-do list and review each item with a star. Look at the item – and ask yourself these questions:
- Is it really necessary it happens – either at all or as frequently as I’m trying to do it?
- Is there someone else who would be as qualified or more qualified to take care of this task?
If the answer to the first question is no (i.e. it isn’t really necessary it happens), consider giving yourself the grace of either crossing it off your list entirely or adjusting your expectations of frequency. For instance, if you’re sweeping the kitchen floor every night because that’s what your mom did, ask yourself what would happen if you did it every other night. Or maybe even every third night.
If the answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is yes, delegate it!
When you try to do something outside your zone of genius, it takes more time and energy than it would for someone who feels passionate and interested in it.
Are you struggling to make dinner every night but your partner loves to cook, can you delegate cooking to them? Prepare dinner together? Maybe trade tasks so you’re taking something you’d love to be doing off their list and freeing up time for them to cook? Get creative!
Shifting your mindset on the truly necessary items
Finally, if the task is necessary and there isn’t anyone who would be better suited to the job, it’s time to focus on a mindset shift.
Think about the why – what is the benefit of doing this task? I don’t clean the house because I like to clean, I clean the house because I love the way it feels when the house is clean.
Focusing on that feeling makes it much easier to do the actual task of cleaning. Check out episode 2 of the podcast for more information on focusing on your why.
Cutting through the “shoulds”
Ok, if you’ve gone through this exercise and your to-do list still feels overwhelmingly long, take a few more slow deep breaths – that’s totally normal.
If you learned at an early age from family, friends, school, or society that something should be important to you, chances are you’ve built a mountain of stories and beliefs on top of that value or priority. So when you’re doing this work, it can sometimes be hard to determine what to put a star next to, what to add a heart to, and then what is actually necessary or delegatable.
So here’s one more filter to pass your remaining to-do list through. Is there anything on it you never seem to take action to make it happen? Maybe you’ve been carrying a task from one list to the next for weeks, months, or years. Or maybe you’re having trouble explaining why an item is important to you.
I was working with a coaching client recently and one of these beliefs came up. She introduced it as aligning with one of her unique priorities, but as we dove into it more, she realized at the root of this priority, something was out of alignment – instead of being a priority, it was in fact a myth she’s accepted until this point as truth.
And the magic question that cracked it open – I asked her if she was on a deserted island – would this thing be important to her? You could also ask yourself if you moved to a different country would this item still be on your to-do list?
The reason why these questions are so powerful is because our unique priorities are all about intrinsic motivation. Whereas the expectations from society, our family, and friends are all about extrinsic motivation. Often those two things overlap – and that’s great! But if you found yourself in a world where no one else expected anything from you – what would YOU expect of yourself?
Applying the deserted island filter
Try going through the remaining items on your to-do list with these two additional filters and add a question mark to each item that you can’t say yes to. Again, those questions are:
- if you were on a deserted island, would this be important to you? and
- if you moved to a different country, would this item still be on your to-do list.
Then run each to-do list item with a question mark next to them through the first two questions again – is it really necessary, and is there someone who would be better able to take care of this?
Shifting your to-do list from overwhelm to excitement
Now you get to the fun part – hopefully the bulk of your list is now filled with items you’ve added a heart to. Take a moment and look at that list, how do you feel seeing a to-do list full of activities you’re looking forward to? Chances are the overwhelm has started to shift toward excitement. That’s the power of aligning your to-do list with your core values.
Let’s go back to my story of the plants. One of my core values is creating a home that feels like a great big hug when I (or anyone else) enters. Filling it with plants, indoors and out, helps me achieve that feeling. Another of my core values is leaving the world a better place than I found it. Growing my own organic produce, composting our food waste, and creating a bio-diverse environment in the gardens all help bring me into alignment with that value.
So where Adam just saw a few more pots of plants, I felt myself aligning with my core values.
If you want to explore this work more, check out the full Core Values exercise.
And if you’d love additional support in working through your to-do list, identifying your core values, and figuring out how to bring your life into more alignment, I’d love to help – you can set up a no-cost Discovery Session with me and we’ll identify a few clear action steps to get you started!
And whatever your next steps is, remember – living your best life isn’t about changing your life – it’s about changing the way you show up for your life! I’m sending you a great big hug – you’ve got this!
Show Notes
Additional Resources
Learn more about your nervous system.
Get the Core Values exercise.
Check out Episode 2 to do a deep dive on focusing on your why.
Get the cheat sheet with all the questions from this episode using the form below.
Schedule a Discovery Session with me.
Submit your question to be featured on a future episode.
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