This is the second of three posts where I share a method for deciding what to do and not to do when your to-do list is too long.

Do What’s Easiest

This method is great when you feel like you’re “not getting anything done” and want to get some momentum going.

1. Consider time. Mark each item with the time necessary to complete it (or your best estimate).

2. Consider effort. Mark each item with Easy, Medium, or Difficult, according to the effort required to accomplish it.

3. Line ‘em up. Number your list from 1 to N, with 1 being the shortest and easiest task and N being the longest and most difficult item.

4. Get to work. Start with number one and move down the list.

When you feel like there is not enough time in the day and you aren’t getting anywhere, focus on the tasks that will give you a sense of completion and forward momentum. Sometimes we need a little kick-start like this to help us more on to more challenging tasks.

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. Happy turkey day!

Instead of a post about Thanksgiving, I’m going to share a short video from my 2008 holiday. Last year I flew back to Boston to celebrate with my family, the first time since 1997. It was a treat!



Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!


If you receive my newsletter, you probably read my article about Thanksgiving and thankfulness, One Minute to Happiness, where I discussed feeling gratitude for the simple things in life.

My newsletter is sent out twice per month with an article to help you find more happiness, balance and meaning in your life. I also share the inside scoop on what I’m working on, wonderful things from other people I admire, and little bits of inspiration.

If you aren’t getting my free email newsletter and would like to, I’d love to have you join the list. The sign-up box is up top, on the left. 

If you would like a copy of the article One Minute to Happiness, email me, and I will be happy to send it to you.

4ZZPHTESYKF3

If you’re like a lot of people I know, you’ve got a to-do list that’s a mile long, your day is jam-packed, and you’ve got a million people needing something from you.

Whew! That’s exhausting to type!

This is the first of three posts where I share a method for deciding what to do and not to do when your task list is too long.
 

Quick ‘n Dirty Post-it Prioritization Method

This is a great way to quickly arrange your to-do list.

This method is excellent for people who are visual. It’s also helpful when you feel like everything and everyone is important, and it paralyzes you from getting anything done.

1. Categorize. List your major life categories, put them on post-its, and stick them in order on a door or blank wall space.

2. Itemize. Write your to-do items on post-its and then group them accordingly.

3. First-pass prioritization. Now, your to-do list is roughly in priority order. If something doesn’t sit right with you, rearrange it.

4. Refine. Figure out how much time you have to get your to-do items done, then cut the list off where you will run out of time.

When you feel like there is not enough time in the day, focus on your own priorities and do what matters most to you. Know that you’re making progress the best you can!

Is your life too complicated? Check your reality against Monday’s quiz.

Are you ready to take things down a notch? Try these seven tips.

1. Say “no” to one thing every day.

2. Leave work at work.

3. Ask for help--don’t do it all yourself.

4. A few times every day, take a moment to take a few deep breaths.

5. Make time to go to bed early.

6. When you cook, make extra. Leftovers are a quick and easy meal for tomorrow.

7. Throw away, recycle, or donate the things you don’t need. Clutter in the house creates clutter in the mind.

Every day, pick one or more of these tips to uncomplicate your life. Slowly and surely, things will simplify.

What other suggestions do you have for uncomplicating life?

It seems like everyone is far too busy. Too many things going on, places to be, details to remember, things to do. Are you wondering if this is all “normal,” or if things are too complicated? Check your reality against this list.

Answer True or False to the following statements.

1. I don’t sleep at least seven hours every night.

2. I can’t remember the last time I took at least seven hours just for myself, for fun.

3. My calendar is double or triple-booked at least once every seven days.

4. There are items on my to-do list that have been there for at least seven weeks, and I am showing no signs of making progress on them.

5. The last seven days were such a blur that I can’t remember what I did or who I saw.

6. My list of reasons “I don’t have time to exercise because...” is more than seven excuses long.

7. I can’t imagine sitting quietly and doing nothing for seven minutes .

If you answered True to more than one of the previous statements, your life may be too complicated.

How are you holding up?

Are you ready to take things down a notch? Stay tuned for seven ways to uncomplicate your life in Thursday’s post.

How complicated is your life?

It can be so easy to say we can’t do something because of an incident in our past. It’s a great excuse to blame history for our future doom.

I was watching Oprah last week, and she shared a story about a young man who attempted to rob a cash advance store. The young man did not end up robbing the store. The woman in the store, Angela, was calm, patient, and, although terrified, also loving. Oprah interviewed Angela and the robber for her show. Angela said these words to the young man:

“Don’t let the past stop you from being great in the future.” --Angela Montez

See the video for yourself. (You can hear her quote at 1:10 in the video.)

Wow. My world came to a halt when I heard those words. I believed her. He can get past this incident. He will likely go to prison. He will serve time for what he did. Then he will be released. He can then move on. He has a little girl at home who needs him.

I reflected on Angela’s words. If I believed that this man could create a better future for himself, why can it be so hard for each of us to believe that we can do that in our own lives?
 
Are you stuck thinking your past will define your future? Are you ready to move past it?

Try these steps to un-stick yourself and move forward.

1. Identify your “stuck” thinking.
It may sound something like this:
I can’t ______________ because _____________. OR
I’ll never ______________ because _____________.

2. Change your language to clarify this is a choice.
The reality is that your “can’t” and “never” is not true. Rewrite your statement.
I choose not to ______________ because I believe that _____________ is a problem.

3. Find evidence that your stuck thinking may not be true.
Maybe you know someone else who made it work or achieved that goal. Maybe you did something similar in the past. Find three pieces of evidence.

4. Ask yourself, “If I didn’t believe [my stuck thinking thought], what would be the first thing I would do?”
Find three steps you would take.

So now, what are you going to do?

Life offers few guarantees.

Some days I wish I had a sure-fire plan to make my life turn out exactly as I want. I bet you have those days, too. Wouldn’t a guarantee on everything be great?

Perfect boss. Dream house. Well-behaved children. Steady income. Luxurious vacations. It would be so easy if they were just guaranteed, wouldn’t it?

Think about it for a moment. If you were six years old and learning addition and you were guaranteed a perfect score on your test, would you keep studying? Some of you may, but not everyone would. If you had a guarantee and stopped studying, you wouldn’t actually learn addition.

If you could be guaranteed that you would study just the perfect thing in college to ensure future success, would you critically evaluate your options? Would you assess your choice along the way to your cap and gown? Once out in the world, would you continue to check your career progress against your true desires?

If you were guaranteed that your business would succeed if you did A and B and C, how would you learn that G is a more enjoyable way to grow your business? And that P was a great thing to do for personal growth, as well as for business profit?

Whenever we take something for granted or consider it to be guaranteed, we turn off our brain. We stop learning, experimenting, questioning, and evaluating. We stop growing.

If someone gave me a simple formula for success, I would likely follow the formula like a robot, doing just what they said. I would blindly move in the direction of their guarantee, because it would be easier than figuring it out on my own.

Part of me would love a success formula that would guarantee my future success as a coach. It would alleviate the pressure, stress, and anxiety that stepping out on my own has brought to the surface. I could relax and just do what I love: coach and write. I could avoid all of the uncomfortable parts, like marketing and selling. I would also miss out on a heck of a lot of personal growth that those things are currently bringing to me.

If I had to guess, the best success formula anyone could give me would look like this:

experimentation + persistence = a good chance of getting what I want

That’s what life’s about. Taking chances, experimenting, persisting. There is no magic formula for success. There are no guarantees. There’s hard work, trying new things, failing, and trying again.

So what are the two steps to guaranteed success? Try and try again.

I can’t tell you exactly what to do to achieve your goals. I can guide you, offer ideas, help you find your own answers, find where you’re holding yourself back, support you through trial and error, and celebrate your successes. I can tell you that you can eventually get what you want when you keep at it.

What goal are you wanting to reach with a guarantee? Are you ready to experiment and persist?

Keep at it. You’ll get there.

Does a dirty kitchen drive you crazy?

One of my childhood chores was doing the dishes after dinner. I became rather efficient at the task. When I grew up and had my own home, I wanted the kitchen spotless after dinner. My husband didn’t have the same clean kitchen policy in his bachelor pad, so if I wanted a tidy kitchen, it was my job to do it.

Some days, if the kitchen wasn’t clean, I got a little crazy. The trouble was, cleaning it could make me crazy, too.

Not too long ago, I finally smartened up.

Who cared about the clean kitchen? Only me.

Did Paul? Not really.

Did my neighbors, who can see the dishes stack up through the window? Likely not.

Did my mom? No. Even if I fabricated a story that she did care, she can’t even see them. She’s 3000 miles away and only knows that my kitchen is occasionally messy because I posted it here for the the world to see.

Why did I like the kitchen clean? It was one less thing to make me crazy, because so much in my life was making me crazy.

Interesting. I really pondered that. A kitchen can make me crazy. From an outsider, objective view, that’s a little crazy.

While I can pretty much control how clean my kitchen is, the process of controlling that trivial thing made me crazy. Like I said, there was little room to feel good.

This is when I realized it was time to lighten up. (If my sister’s reading this, she’s probably laughing hysterically at this point.)

I thought a clean kitchen made my house more relaxing. Although maybe it did, keeping that kitchen clean was far from relaxing. Was a spic-n-span kitchen necessary for me to function in life? Certainly not. In fact, it was limiting my functionality because of all the mental space I was taking up just by thinking about it.

Once I sorted out that I didn’t need my kitchen to be perfectly clean all of the time, I began to pride myself on the ability to occasionally let dishes pile up for a few days... and not go crazy in the mean time.

What can you let go of just a little, for the sake of your sanity?

I’d guess that at some point in your life you got together with other people to brainstorm something. It could have been how to solve a work problem, hit on a cutie at a bar, or convince your parents to lend you their car for the weekend. When two or more minds meet to solve a problem, you are engaging in a mastermind.

Until recently, I didn’t realize there was a word to describe the awesome women that helped me survive my time in corporate management. We were four female managers in a male-dominated work environment who banned together once every three weeks over a long lunch to support each other though our greatest and not-so-great moments. There were periods of complaining, and there was also a lot of camaraderie, support, and brainstorming. We all have said that that we may not have survived as long as we did without each other.

Mastermind groups are a great way to make progress with the support of others, whether in your personal life or work life. The groups can be formal or informal, though the more you put in the more you get out.

I’ve been leading a Mastermind group for coaches for the past 2 months, and the group’s been having a lot of fun and sharing great ideas, and each individual is making big strides in her business.

This Thursday I’m launching a second Mastermind group for small business owners!

• Are you a coach, artist, writer, service provider, or other small business owner?
• Would you like to join like-minded business owners for support in helping you grow your business?
• Camaraderie, support, and fresh ideas are just the beginning!

If you're a small business owner, sign up today!
(or at least start your own group--you’ll be glad you did!)