Many of us are trying to squeeze too much into each day. We overload ourselves with responsibilities, commitments and expectations which we frantically try to meet.
At any given time we don’t have a clear idea of what all this stuff is, nor do we know if we have enough time to actually do it all. But we just keep going in the hope that somehow we will reach an ‘end’. But we won’t. Our efforts, and our failure to reach this illusive ‘end’, will only exhaust, frustrate and depress.
This all sounds pretty grim, but we can do something about it! And the answer is not work harder or longer - the answer is to cut back on your commitments.
Last year I initiated my own cutting back campaign, and this week’s Zen Habits post “A guide to cutting back when you feel overwhelmed” prompted me to share my experience. As Leo explains in his post, overloading ourselves leads to stress (which is very detrimental to our physical and emotional well-being) and also decreases our effectiveness in achieving our goals.
We need to take care of ourselves, and use our energy wisely to achieve the goals which are important to us. Usually, doing this involves cutting back. The key to cutting back, as far as I am concerned, is to ‘get real’ about your own life.
Get a clear and honest perspective of what you are doing now, what you are capable of doing and what you want to do. Once you have this, it will become obvious what you need to cut. I am going to outline the three step process which helped me get a better perspective.
1. Capture all your commitments on paper
David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system contends that we all have a lot of ’stuff’ bouncing around in our heads (according to Allen, stuff is: “anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step”).
As long as we allow this to continue, our mental energy will be consumed with keeping all these balls in the air and we will forever have the feeling that there is something we have forgotten, or something we should be doing that is more important than what we are doing right now. Sounds kinda overwhelming, huh?
GTD instructs us to capture all this stuff - that is, write it down. Until you make this list you will not have a complete picture of what you have committed yourself to do. And while all this stuff remains a big, undefined blob you will have no control over it and no ability to do anything about it.
So, to begin your cutting back campaign you need to make a list. Include EVERYTHING you are currently doing or trying to do. This includes big goals (like go back to university), small goals (like exercise every day), things you said you would do (like help out at a charily stall), and mundane tasks (like clean windows).
For the purpose of this exercise, if something is on your mind, if it is already on one of your many to do lists or if you keep meaning to get to it, then you have committed mental energy to that task and you need to write it down whether or not you beleive you are truly ‘committed’ to it.
Use David Allen’s own Trigger List to make sure you have captured all those niggling to-dos from all areas of your life.
In next week’s post I’ll cover the final two steps in my cutting back campaign.
Rebecca
This article was posted on 20 January, 2008
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January 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am
Great stuff - I’m writing my list, can’t wait for parts 2 & 3! Thank you for sharing