LET'S TALK TO DO LISTS

To do lists are great. But they can also easily create overwhelm when we put anything and everything we could possibly think of that needs doing sometime this week, month or year on them. And as the never ending to do list grows - because lets face it, for every item you tick off is quickly replaced with another one of four more items which can leave us feeling easily stressed and overwhelmed by all that "needs" to be done. So today I want to share a little 3 step process that I have personally found to be very useful when creating a to do list. I love to do this first thing Monday morning as it helps me organise and get clear on what I am doing that week. 

1. Do a brain dump. Basically write your never ending to do list - get all your thoughts out on a piece of paper. What this can do is help to clear your mind and create space for you to evaluate what is important now, and what can wait. And quite often it's a lot of the same thoughts going around and around in you mind making them seem a lot more pressing, complicated or stressful than what they perhaps really need to be. So get it all out on paper. 

2. Look at your piece of paper and divide them into different categories using coloured markers: So blue could be for work, yellow for family/home and pink for personal... Then one by one I look at each category and give it a number of importance (and simply scratching out anything that isn't necessary or needing to be done anytime soon...) 

3. Get out you planner or a new piece of paper to write your to do list for the week. Now be ruthless with what you actually allow to be on this list and realistic about how much time it may take. I only add the top 3 that are most important or pressing for each category (depending on how large a task they are of course). You can keep the other list near by as a reminder for next week, but instead of then feeling like you need to tackle the a whole world in a day (which is just overwhelming for anyone), you can have a clear focus and feel great when you tick each item off. You may even feel so motivated and on top of things that you tackle a few of the other items on your brain dump too, which is a bonus!

Hop this helps and please remember to put plenty of self-care on your personal to do list!

Love