How does having lots of to-dos make you feel?\u00a0 The answer might vary depending on many different circumstances.\u00a0 There is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when we have lots of things pressing on our time and still manage to get it all done.\u00a0 It can certainly make you feel alive, your heart is racing, and you can look around and see all that you accomplished.\u00a0 There is a time and a place for using this energy.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, if this is how you primarily function, your super productive moments might be far and few between.\u00a0 If you do not have that external pressure to get it all done, it is easy to struggle when you have lots of to-dos on your list.\u00a0 And truthfully how many of us actually have a little to-do list?\u00a0 There is always more to do, even if it\u2019s not critical or important to accomplish in a certain time frame.<\/p>\n
Too often when we race around getting things done, we might end up looking around and see how much is left to be done.\u00a0 We might have even created more of a mess in the process.\u00a0 Sometimes we even wear ourselves out doing this.<\/p>\n
For me, often what I need to do, after I slow down enough to recognize that I am spinning my wheels, is to choose one area, a small area, and focus on dealing with that space.\u00a0 Maybe you noticed, or maybe not, that I prefaced my previous statement with a \u201cfor me\u201d \u2013 this is one<\/em> of many ways to focus our energy.\u00a0 You might need to approach it differently \u2013 and begin with one focus rather than an area.<\/p>\n Area focus:<\/strong> I will focus on each thing that needs to be done in that specific area and I will remain there until I am finished or until I want to stop working for the time being.<\/p>\n Focus area:<\/strong> I will go through various spaces dealing with a specific focus, this can be everything that belongs in a specific room or other people might focus on picking up all the papers that need to be recycled.<\/p>\n Neither is any better than the other, it varies on your situation and what works best for you.\u00a0 Again, for me, when I focus on an area, I can then look at the area and clearly see what I accomplished \u2013 however minor it might have been.\u00a0 Then again, if you have many things around that belong in another room, you can see what you\u2019ve gathered.<\/p>\n Another key to focusing your attention and working on something is that you are mindful.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to be mindful of what you are doing and how you are using your time and energy.\u00a0 When we race around sometimes, we\u2019re not really paying attention to what we are doing.\u00a0 Too often I see people so desperate to get all these things done, they wear themselves out.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve talked before about there being times when you just need to stop for a while.\u00a0 It might be that you need to decide where you want to focus yourself or it might be that you\u2019re overwhelmed or stumped about the things you\u2019re dealing with.\u00a0 Whatever it might be, taking time off, time to think and process is a good thing.\u00a0 It can be hard to feel like it\u2019s a good thing, but I cannot think of a time when it\u2019s served the person well to barrel through.\u00a0 It\u2019s too easy to make rash decisions that inadvertently cause more work and stress.<\/p>\n Our time is spent most effectively when we make decisions about what we want to focus on and avoid distractions from other tasks.\u00a0 This is another area where a timer can help keep us where we want to be \u2013 deciding to work on x for y amount of time.\u00a0 There\u2019s no need to try to do it all tomorrow.\u00a0 Everything takes time and energy and divvying it up into manageable focused chunks will help you make the progress you want and save yourself the time and energy in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our to-do lists are never-ending, and racing around trying to do it all doesn\u2019t serve anyone well. Figure out which focus works for you (and with what circumstances) and begin to accomplish those things are your to-do list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,8,18,5,22,17],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-productivity","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-dU","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}