Tag: Prioritize

Giving Yourself a Break

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Do you ever find yourself carried away? By emotions, by life, by the hectic schedule or seemingly endless incoming emails? It’s easy to get so wrapped up in what we, “need,” to do that we completely miss the things that we want to do in life. Today I want to encourage you to give yourself a break. Release the need to be productive and to hold yourself accountable for obligations.

For example, two years ago I joined a writer’s seminar virtually. I have yet to organize my notes. Perhaps this is not the priority I need to give my attention and energy towards. If I haven’t done it in two years, chances are I can let it go. There’s lots of guidance on how to prioritize our time, our tasks, etc. But so often that time gets eaten up by small things that are meaningless. And worse than that we are consumed by tasks that are merely distractions from those moments, people, places, and opportunities that we truly love. 

Today I want only to share a question. What if we paused and allowed ourselves the freedom, the space, and the openness to explore our interests, expand our horizons? Instead of pushing for one more email reply, one more item checked off the list, or one more task completed. What if we considered what fuels us? Thought about what brings us joy? Considered what feels like happiness to you? How does that look, feel, taste, smell, sound? 

In this post there is no wisdom, there is only the questions above and my ardent hope you give yourself a break and the time to explore them.

Prioritization: Wisdom from Successful Women

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Some days chaos will find you wherever you go. Today is one of those hectic days where the phone rings, the emails pour in, and even though it is a shorter holiday week, all of the work of a full week needs to get done. Despite all of these responsibilities calling for my attention I am making a point to put my goals first. Often we get rushed into decisions and with so many competing agendas I can get distracted into making someone else’s goal list my own. It’s not my favorite reality but it does happen. To get back in my own lane I take the following steps.

Make a List – The first step I take is to create of list of the items I would like to accomplish in a day. I actually took this idea from Ariana Huffington. Ariana, if you’re reading, thank you for your wisdom, I appreciate you. At the end of the day Ms. Huffington takes half an hour or less to go through her list of items that she wants to accomplish the next day. This stems from having larger goals that we have first broken into smaller steps – check out this blog post on breaking your goals up into manageable steps here. Once that work is done you then have smaller bites, little steps that you can accomplish to attain your larger goals. 

Take Two Small Steps – This wisdom comes from the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. Garten believes in taking two steps every week towards accomplishing your goal. This works like a dream because two steps in a week is manageable and every inch forward is still moving ahead!

Now, that we’ve got two steps toward goal accomplishment and our goals broken down into digestible steps – how do we keep those priorities when it seems like everyone we talk to has an agenda and a plan for how we should spend our time? 

Pick your Ball – That’s when I call in Nora Ephron. She believes that to balance priorities we have balls that we are all juggling to keep in the air at all times. Now, some of those balls are glass and some of them are plastic, it’s up to you to determine their value. Family, friendships, etc. these are your glass balls that you don’t ever want to drop and break. But you can drop some balls some of the time and you have to, unless you have figured out time travel and shape-shifting. If you have yet to accomplish this, please consider that you cannot be in all places at all times and sometimes when you are one place it means you’re missing something that is fairly important somewhere else. You must discern which tasks, opportunities, moments, are made of glass and which ones are made of plastic – and doing that will give you the opportunity to be there for the events and people that are most important to you. 

The goal is to use your intuition and to discern what is most important to you. How do you do that? Well, I often find for big decisions that flipping a coin helps. Usually, while the coin is in mid-air, there’s one side I’m hoping for and that is my gut telling me what I truly want. 

Practice – Another way to be sure we don’t get distracted by competing desires is to practice listening to ourselves. The best way to practice discernment is to begin listening to the small voice inside of you. The key is to start small. Don’t ignore your voice for decades and then expect it to be strong and bold when it’s time to make a major decision. You have to listen to your inner voice all the time so that it knows that if it does speak up it will be heard.

That voice is easy to ignore when you’re around other people. Simply because everyone else’s voice is just so loud – they’re talking at you! Your inner voice will whisper and so it’s important to listen closely. A great way to begin is to take yourself out for ice cream. Don’t bring anyone else because then you’ll be tempted to “have what she’s having.” And don’t ask the server to pick for you because that’s cheating. 

As a former ice cream server I can tell you that people spend more time selecting a flavor than they do a new car. It’s because there’s so many options and unless you have an old standby from which you never waiver, there are a lot of tempting flavors to try. That’s the beauty of ice cream, even if you make the wrong choice, in the end you still have ice cream, which is always good and relatively inexpensive. If you get it wrong, come back another day. Try something else and find what you like. Once you have ice cream down experiment and listen to yourself on progressively larger and larger choices. This will help you train and practice for those bigger decisions, when you really want to hear your own voice above the din, when it matters and you need to listen to your own gut above all of the chaos and competing demands.

How do you stay in your own lane and make yourself your main priority? 

Obligations vs. Opportunities

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I have noticed myself rushing lately, pushing myself to complete more and more tasks. Accomplish goals, meet deadlines, and rush ahead. I also notice that this pressure does not help me to move any faster. It only leaves me feeling burdened and as if I have let myself or someone else down. Instead of doing that right now I am making a practice of taking my time. I am only expecting myself to accomplish those items that must be accomplished today. I am not putting off work or leaving those things that I can do until later. I am simply trying to do my best not to start and stop.

This means that I often open up projects or leave larger items on my “to do,” list for an extended period of time. This places undue burdens on my current and future self to complete a task. The thing about these items is that they are rarely necessary. And I know they are not necessary because I clearly did not make the time to do them the first week they were on my list. I still did not find the time to do them the following month. Leaving these items on my list does not serve me as I very clearly do not want to do them and there is no urgency to get them done. Instead I will make time for those things that do nourish and fill me. 

Instead of begrudging myself the incomplete task I will remove it from the list and feel a million times better. Because if it needed to be done or there was any motivating force to accomplishing this task, it would have shown up already. And if a task does not need to be done why am I holding it over my own head? Why am I beating up on myself or feeling unaccomplished because of it? Clearly my time has been filled with other things and clearly those things were either more urgent or more important. 

This weekend I did not find the time to make a dentist appointment. This is a long range task because I only see the dentist every six months. Does it need to be done immediately? No. Are my teeth healthy and well? Yes. So why would I feel angry or disappointed in myself for not accomplishing this task when I did have enough time to cuddle with my children and watch a movie. I had enough time to go through old family albums and listen to my grandmother’s stories. These are the real and important tasks that never make my list but always fill my cup and my heart. 

I don’t need to be petty with myself or with others and point out that one item that was not finished, when the larger picture, the big bold and beautiful works that make life worth living, that enhance our connections to other people and help us get to know ourselves better – those tasks get done. Those items are my priorities. I will not be sad or disappointed any more that basic tasks go unaccomplished because when they need to be done, they will be. And whatever I need to take away from the experience will be taken away. 

Instead of feeling less than because I did not make a dentist appointment – I am going to rejoice that I followed my inner knowing. I spent time with my grandmother and I focused on my children. I gave my full attention where it was needed and important. I did not waste my time on small tasks – there will be time for those tasks in the future. The work of now is to be attentive to my priorities and proud of myself for having myself so aligned that I did not ignore the magic in the moment to complete some obligation that brought me no joy but satisfied my desire to scratch something off a list. Because I’ll tell you, movie night with kiddos is never on the list but it happens every week. And quality time with Grandma was not on the list but when I saw that she would be in town and i could inspire her to share some of what she knows with me and listen to stories of our family history that I have never heard or known. I am proud of myself for jumping on that opportunity and for building connections to my past with her as my guide. I know more about who I am by knowing where my family came from. I know more about myself, about her, and about our history because my Grandmother is willing to tell her stories and because I am willing to listen. This does not happen every visit and I am grateful to myself for recognizing the moment and jumping on it. 

Routine and rudimentary tasks will always be there and some days are for making dental and doctors appointments. Some days are for errands and tasks and some days are for magic. Some days are for all of the things that are not on your list but belong at the top because they are worthy and wonderful – just like you are, just like I am. I am grateful to myself for doing this work and for showing up for myself and my family. I am grateful, pleased, and proud.