Conquering those to-do lists

Okay, I know your children may do something other than dance, but since my world revolves around the dance school’s schedule, I’m going to refer to you that way. Feel free to swap out that for “soccer” or “karate” or “gymnastics” or whatever. But ultimately, we’re all in the same boat. We have an incredibly busy schedule that I had absolutely NO idea about until I was in so deep I could never dream of getting out again!

(and seriously, I don’t want to. I love seeing my children grow as dancers. I’m happy it’s my world!)

But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use some things to make life easier. Seriously.

So I’m going to be sending out weekly emails that will be short and hopefully super encouraging to you. If you use the ideas, I’d LOVE to hear from you about how it went.

This week’s tip: Don’t make such an extensive to-do list!

Seriously.

If I told you just not to make one, you’d laugh at me, unsubscribe, and go on making your lists. And that would be purely hypocritical on my part, because I LOVE lists. LOVE them with a passion.

But I think we tend to expect far more of ourselves than is possible or sane.

The list in my head for today looks like this:

• Clean the house
• Make healthy meals for lunch and supper
• Work with my son on his spelling
• Edit the pictures from last week’s photo shoot

In reality, I’ll get done 2.5 things from this list: spelling, cooking, and get through about half of the pictures. So when I’m lying in bed, I’ll think about how much didn’t get done. And tomorrow I’ll wake up thinking “oh man, now I need to finish yesterday’s list AND start today’s!”

Not a healthy mindset.


So instead, this is my list for today:

• Lunch and supper
• Help my son with spelling
• Get through the pictures from last week: tag favorites and delete the obvious junk
• Clean up one area for 15 minutes

You know the best part of this list? Not only am I actually likely to complete it, but there’s a good chance I’ll get something else done too. So instead of going to bed with items left un-checked, I’ll be able to smile knowing I did MORE!