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Dig Yourself Out! How to Manage a Too Long, To-Do List.

I have had that feeling lately. My lungs feel tight. It feels as though a great weight has been placed on my chest.  I feel underground, as though mounds of dirt are obscuring my normally optimistic, blue-sky outlook. I feel as though I am trying to dig my way back up to clear, unpolluted air again. My muscles feel tired as I push forward to a new task all the while my unyielding brain reminds me of the mountain of tasks waiting to be completed next.

Has this ever happened to you? Despite your best efforts, have you suddenly found yourself buried under the weight of incomplete tasks? When we become aware that we are buried under a list of too many things to do, it is critical to our well being and self-confidence that we dig ourselves out.

Here are five simple, tried and true steps to quickly restore balance to your task list and your life:

Step One: Breathe.

The difference between anxiety and excitement is often our breath.  Breathing brings oxygen, our life force, back in our bodies to calm our nervous system and create the energy we need to get work done.

Step Two: Write down ALL of your incomplete tasks.

While seeing everything you have yet to complete on one sheet of paper can be incredibly overwhelming, it gets all of this information out of your mind. When we don’t have an organized list of what we need to do, our mind is often distracted from the task at hand by thoughts of other things we need to do. Writing it all down frees up your mental space to actually get work done, rather than your mind racing from anxious thought to anxious thought.

Step Three: Choose what you will do, what you will delegate and what you will erase.

You either have to do the task, ask someone else to do it or choose not to do it. There are no other alternatives. When we perpetually push tasks forward on our calendar without completing them, our mental energy stays tied to the incomplete task. Completing, delegating or erasing the task allows you to feel a sense of completion, which creates mental energy.

Step Four: Be present with each task you choose to complete.

When you complete a task, be fully present with it.  Focus your mind and your senses on the work in front of you. Don’t allow interruptions to derail you. Research clearly shows that our minds are not as effective with multi-tasking as we think they are. Mono-tasking with presence will allow you to move through your to-do list quickly and efficiently.

Step Five: Each time you complete a task, take a deep breath, exhale and say, “peace restored.”

Celebration is a great way to build momentum. As we breathe and celebrate the completion of a task, we are acknowledging the positive steps we are taking. Although it may take a while to achieve the end result of a manageable to-do list, celebrating each complete item gives us a momentary feeling of peace and the encouragement to keep going.

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Vacation: The Surprising Way to Increase Your Productivity

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Have you gone more than six months without a vacation?
  • When you schedule a vacation, is your excitement diminished by a lingering feeling of guilt?
  • Do you fear that your absence will lead to a decrease in results?
  • Do you fear being seen as a less committed leader because you are taking time away from your work?
  • Do you dread your inevitable return because you know it means an overfilled e-mail inbox and line of people waiting to speak to you?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you are compromising your own productivity. When we are chronically busy, our fatigued brains become robotic in the scheduling and completion of tasks. We lose the ability to be present. Our efficiency decreases and our error rate increases. We become impatient and short with others. We lose sight of our vision and myopically operate within day-to-day tasks. In short, in our quest to do more, we actually accomplish less.

Vacation allows our brains to rejuvenate. As we dig our toes into the cool, wet sand, we become reconnected with our senses. As we look at our spouse and really see them, we remember why we fell in love. As we experience new sights, foods and cultures, our sense of adventure returns. As we decompress, our motivation renews. As we think less and feel more, our creative mind reengages, allowing us to see new and different ways of doing things. As we bask in the glow of doing nothing, the idea of doing something becomes appealing and exciting again.

When we return to work, we reap the advantages of our renewed brain. We are more efficient and creative with problem solving. We are better able to be empathetic and patient with our team. We have renewed passion for our vision and the energy to take the steps to realize it. Therefore, if you are feeling burnt out and haven’t scheduled a vacation in the past six months, it may be time to pull out your calendar and make time to take one. Your productivity depends on it.

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How Overloading Your To-Do List Erodes Your Self-Confidence

Have you ever looked at your to-do list with a general feeling of malaise? Have you had periods of feeling tired, overwhelmed, anxious, bored and generally zoned out of life? As previously written, these symptoms can be an indication of living outside of your true values. But what if your life is aligned with your values and you are still feeling this way? You may be surprised to find that your to-do list is the culprit of these yucky feelings.

When we decide to complete a task, for ourselves or someone else, our self-confidence becomes inextricably linked to the completion of that task within the agreed upon time frame. If we complete the task on time, we feel energized, productive and positive. Our energy is increased for the next task on our list. If we do not complete the task, we start to create stories in our mind to justify the late deadline. A significant portion of our energy becomes allocated to telling this story, while still trying to get the work done. Even when the task is eventually completed, our good feelings regarding the completion are significantly eroded.

If you chronically overfill your to-do list, you are setting yourself up for low self-confidence. It is impossible to feel good about yourself if you are missing deadlines, creating stories and struggling to get work done. If you find yourself over-committing and under-delivering, know that there is a simple, albeit not easy, way out of this destructive habit.

To increase your self-confidence, take 100% responsibility for your to-do list. From a healthy, 100% responsibility perspective, we say yes to only those assignments that we are able to realistically accomplish in the agreed upon timeline. When we take more than 100% responsibility, we are being a martyr.  Martyrs take on too much work because they feel that no one else will do the work as good as them. When we take less than 100% responsibility, we are being a victim. Victims blame others for putting too many items on their to-do list, without actively accepting responsibility for saying yes to more assignments than can be realistically completed.

Take 100% responsibility for your to-do list today and see how this one, simple change will have you immediately feeling more positive, energized, engaged and confident.

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Are you a Sara or a Joe? How To Get at Least 31% Better Results.

Sara wakes up. As her mind returns to conscious awareness, she rushes to cover her groggy eyes from the bright, beaming sun. A quiet discontent fills her mind as she runs through the anticipated day’s events. Her entire being is filled with dread. She heaves her achy feet over the side of the bed as her hand races to a jolting pain in her back. Her first thought as her feel hit the floor is, “I wish I was still in bed.” She slowly stumbles to the bathroom and grimaces at her puffy face in the mirror.

Joe wakes up. As his mind returns to conscious awareness, he feels a peaceful contentedness. He hears birds singing in the distance and notices the sun is shining. He takes a deep breath and thinks excitedly about the opportunities in front of him today. He stretches his arms high as he swings his legs over the side of the bed, letting out a wild yawn in the process. His first thought as his feet hit the floor is, “today is going to be awesome.” His eager feet move him quickly toward the bathroom and he chuckles at his disheveled hair in the mirror.

As you read the descriptions of Sara and Joe, who do you think will get better results? Science says that Joe is likely to get better results, because his outlook is more positive. When we are positive, our minds work 31% better than when we are in a negative, neutral or stressed state. When thinking from a positive mindset, we are more open to new ideas. We are more able to come up with innovative solutions. We are more consciously present. We see the opportunities in front of us.

When we start our day with a positive mindset, our brain works 31% better, which means we can at least expect to get 31% better results from our efforts. This is because all of our behavior and actions begin as thoughts. If we have a positive mindset, we take positive action.  If we have a negative mindset, we either don’t take action or choose actions that don’t actually support our goals.

Who are you more like, Sara or Joe? If you find yourself starting your day like Sara, what kind of outcomes are you getting? If you don’t like the results from starting your day in a negative mindset, give Joe’s habits a try. Waking and working from a positive mindset could be the key to getting at least 31% better results from your efforts.

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Your Happiness Hinges On Answering These Two Questions

How much money do you need to feel successful?  How much money will you give to make a difference?

So often in leadership and life we use financial measures to define success. Most people agree that billionaire Bill Gates has led a successful life revolutionizing the computer world. Equally, most people agree that Mother Theresa led a successful life by taking a vow of poverty and devoting herself to serving the poorest of the poor.

But what if you don’t aspire to be Bill Gates rich?  What if you don’t aspire to be Mother Theresa poor?  How do you decide what balance of making money and giving to the world is right for you? Unless you are either the poorest or the richest person in the world, there will always be someone who has more than you and someone who has less than you.

When we look up the ladder at those who have more financial success than us, we can feel jealous and envious of their outward showings of success.  When we look down the ladder at those who have less financial success than us we may feel guilty for the abundance in our own life.  If we feel bad when we look up the ladder and we feel bad when we look down the ladder, there is only one place left to look.  It is the place where we find true happiness and success. That place is inside ourselves.

If we live within our own definition of financial success, then we close the loop of “not enough.” We no longer feel not rich enough. We no longer feel not giving enough. We release the energy of comparing our life and focus it on living our life. We open ourselves up to the potential of being happy, exactly as we are in the current moment.

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The One Universal Barrier to Success That Everyone Faces

There is a fundamental truth that limits our self-growth; we can only change those things of which we are aware.

  • If you don’t realize that no one on your team understands your vision, you won’t make it more clear to them.
  • If you don’t realize how yelling at your team demoralizes them, you won’t learn how to deliver a firm, but calm message.
  • If you don’t realize how consistently missing your own deadlines undermines your team’s motivation to meet deadlines, you won’t learn how to better delegate and stop procrastinating.
  • If you don’t realize how your own lack of self-confidence undermines your team’s confidence in you, you will continue to over-compensate for the confidence gap with ego-driven leadership tactics.
  • If you don’t understand how your fears hold you back, you won’t release yourself from those fears to reach new heights of success.
  • If you don’t understand your own knee-jerk reactions (automated behaviors), you will continue to feel remorse when you respond in a less than ideal way.
  • If you don’t know yourself deeply, you will never know your true capabilities.

We all have blind spots to our own strengths and weaknesses. No one is exempt from the limitations of self-perception. In order to realize our full potential, we need to remain open to feedback from others. We should seek this feedback from trusted others, such as mentors, colleagues, friends, family and even our team who report to us. These trusted others allow us to increase our self-awareness by better understanding how our thoughts, communications and actions impact those around us. An Executive Coach can also help you significantly increase your self-awareness and create a pathway to reaching your highest potential. Most importantly, we must understand that awareness empowers us to be present, purpose-driven and powerful.