Why your to-do list is stressing you out

Oct 5

Do you ever look at your to-do list and want to throw it at a wall? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. To-do lists can be a great tool to help us acknowledge what we’re getting done and keep track of everything yet to do, but they can also become overwhelming as hell.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in getting things done — meeting deadlines and just getting through the week — that we forget to prioritize the things most important to us. Taking time to identify and prioritize our values in our weekly tasks can help make them feel less overwhelming.

Here are five steps to help get you there:

1. Identify your values

Surprise! You can’t prioritize something if you don’t know what it is. The first step to integrating your values into your week is to know what they are. Your values can be anything that is a priority in your life. They don’t have to be deep; they don’t have to be anything other than something that’s truly important to you. This is different from what you think you should be doing. For example, education and accomplishment are two very important values to me. Rather than getting caught up in what I think accomplishment should look like, I’ve had to define that for myself to feel like I’m really living that value.

2. Gather up all your to-do lists

Are you keeping multiple to-do lists in different places? Random post-it notes? A notebook? Your phone? Somewhere in your mind? Don’t worry, it happens. But it’s also chaotic and isn’t conducive to actually completing the things on your to-do list.

Round them all up and put them in one place. And don’t just put them anywhere. Put them somewhere you’ll naturally go to check on them. This can be in the notes app on your phone, on a notepad on the fridge or in your notebook. Where you keep your to-do list is totally up to your preference, just make sure you’ll check it regularly.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you can’t have more than one type of to-do list. It’s just helpful to have them in one place.

3. Prioritize your to-do list in relation to your values

Now that you’ve identified your values and the items that need to be on your to-do list, you can prioritize. Often, things need to be prioritized by urgency. Once you identify the things that are time-sensitive, you can focus on prioritizing things that are most important to you.

4. Cross out the sh*t you don’t need to do

Let’s be honest, there are some things we put on our to-do lists that live there forever. I can’t tell you how long I’ve had “finish cross-stitch” on my to-do list. At some point, you have to recognize that if it’s been on there for weeks and it isn’t getting done, it just isn’t a priority. Cross it out.

If you have things that need to be done but have a flexible time frame, you can make a separate list for the low-priority things and slowly tackle that list when you have some free time.

5. Recognize the challenges

Not everything that is a value of yours is going to fill you with joy. Because education is a value of mine, I took a lot of classes and wrote a lot of papers that I wasn’t passionate about to finish my degrees. There are some things on our lists that are essential to meeting our goals but might not make us super happy to do them. That doesn’t mean they’re not in alignment with our values, though. To help you get through the difficult tasks, you need to remind yourself of how they align with your values and why you need to get them done.

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