By Rebecca Eliason, M.S.
My father always says “things take longer than they should.” He often warns me to be careful of how much I take on, as there are usually variables that cannot be accounted for that can eat up the little time I leave myself for a designated task. This year I have set some particularly lofty personal and professional goals and commitments for myself, and on top of it, I keep finding new tasks on my plate that I could swear I never signed up for. Nonetheless, my schedule is rapidly filling and my challenge is to stay functional and healthy.
I think that many people I speak with find themselves in this predicament- too much to do and not enough time. In my perfect little dream world, I could take care of all the items on my list that I deem priorities, and only after finishing my top 10, get to the rest of the list. However, in my life, that’s not usually the case. Typically, many of the insignificant projects come with real deadlines, difficult people and consequences, whereas the items that I think are important are the ones I can and usually do push off.
Today was one of those days where I had set out to be incredibly productive from morning until night. Sadly, I filled my quota of what I was capable of doing at 11:45 am. How do I know? I hit that physically ill point where my body told me that if I didn’t spend the day in bed, I’d be in big trouble.
Now, what should you do if you find yourself in this predicament? It can obviously be stressful and anxiety provoking to have more to do than you think you can manage especially when you’re in the danger zone of actually not getting everything done.
1. Realize you can’t have it all. Sometimes something has to give. Sometimes you can’t take care of yourself the way you may want to and get everything done. So you might have to make a decision. Today I took ownership over my responsibilities to others and to myself and decided to spend more time in bed than I have in over 2.5 years. I took an active approach by making the choice of what I would do rather than seemingly letting a bad day dictate my behaviors and feeling upset about it later. It’s important to take ownership over your decisions, even if they are hard ones. Today my limitations were physical but I still chose to push off my responsibilities for the day and take care of my health. It was my choice. Some people may not have agreed with my decision but it was my decision to make.
2. This is the time to think about what your dogmatic beliefs are. Did I have to get everything done? I have simple evidence proving that I did not have to get everything done… I didn’t get it done. Was it the end of the world that I didn’t complete my goals for the day? Certainly not. Please don’t misunderstand, tomorrow will be a more hectic day of work and I certainly do have responsibilities, but sometimes people do not get their work done on time. Today, I joined the ranks of people that miss a deadline. I choose not to hold myself to a higher standard than others who sometimes fall short of accomplishing everything they want to do.
3. Acknowledge your preferences. Today my preference was to have an incredibly productive day, but it was simply a preference. I am disappointed about my lack of productivity but because it was preferential, not compulsory, I am not spending the night depressed over my shortcomings. Like I said, we’ve all got them.