If you often feel like you just have too much on your plate, be that a never ending “to do” list, feeling as though you hold lots of responsibility for others (and have little time for yourself), or you just have too many thoughts in your head….this exercise might help you.
Grab a stack of post it notes (or some scraps of paper will do just fine too) and a pen and spend up to 30 mins just getting everything out of your head and onto paper.
You want just one task or thought per note.
Next, start to organise these into three columns.
Column One: Super Urgent
Column Two: Medium Urgency
Column Three: Not Very Urgent
Put column three away for now. We often spend time doing these things because they feel easier or less stressful, but that means the things in column one get MORE urgent and MORE stressful.
You can put column two to one side too for now, you can come back to it in a few days.
For now, just focus on working your way through column one. I like to simply start with the first item and work my way through them one at a time (even if some are more urgent than others. This can stop you from procrastinating and help you to feel more in control.
If your list isn’t a list of tasks, but more a list of situations or feelings you can still do this. Spend some time thinking about each one and seeing if any solutions come to mind. If not, no worries simply move on and come back to it later.
