There’s just too much to do.

No other way to say it. Every few days I sit down and do a brain dump of all the tasks that I know that I need to do. I also list out the projects that have some of my attention. Sometimes they’re urgent projects that need my attention right away. Often they’re projects that are just over the horizon. Things that I should be working on now to avoid disasters later on. Having spent years contingency planning in my prior work life, it’s pretty easy for me to look ahead. It’s just a natural part of my psyche.

But then I have these lists of tasks and projects, sometimes pages and pages of them and there’s no way that I can do them all. If I had unlimited time and financial resources, let alone enough people to delegate tasks to, I’m still sure that I couldn’t get it all done. That’s when the sense of overwhelm sets in. The realization that no matter how hard I work, how smart I am, and no matter how much energy I use…things aren’t going to get done. As a (barely) recovering perfectionist it’s really hard for me to let go of anything. And things that I know will make our lives better are even harder to let go of. Some things get set aside for lack of resources. When that resource is money, the project goes onto my when money is available list. It’s not really a wish list, so much as a plan that looks forward into the future and helps me make decisions later. Rather than wracking my brain for ideas, I open that list and fund the couple of projects that I have money for. If I know the extra money will be coming in, then the projects get onto my radar a bit sooner so I can plan and make the best use of the time and money.

But I’m still overwhelmed most of the time. I know part of it is because the Hectic Family is used to me doing everything. It’s something that my accountability partner reminds me of on a regular basis. He keeps nagging me to get the kids more involved in tasks around the house. Deep down, I know he’s right. I’ve let the situation get out of control for most of their lives, so getting them to step up and help out is a total culture shock to them. The two youngest have been fairly resistant to change. It’s an odd reversal where the younger kids are balking at things that the older kids weren’t required to do. In the usual case, the older kids gripe that the younger kids have it far too easy. Both sets of kids are right…but that doesn’t make the situation right. The family is different today than it used to be, we’ve got fewer people to do the same jobs, and there’s still the same work to be done. I’m trying not to burden the kids unnecessarily, but the pushback just adds to my sense of overwhelm.

For a while, I took the tack of not doing the brain dumps. I mistakenly thought that if I didn’t list everything out, I might not feel so bad about not doing everything on my list. The end result was lots of things falling through he cracks. I had traded a feeling of overwhelm for a feeling of utter failure. Things were not only not getting done, there were emergencies upon emergencies, all of my own creation. So I swung the pendulum the other way for a while. Every time I thought of a project, it went into Todoist, my task manager. It wasn’t long before I bumped into the limit of 200 projects in a single Todoist implementation. Yeah, I’ve got lots and lots of projects in active as well as future status. So I dropped back to paper and started recording two lists: One for tasks and one for projects. On a weekly basis, I’m supposed to transfer all the projects to a Google Sheet that’s used to hold my projects. I say “supposed to” because it’s been somewhat hit-or-miss, especially of late. Then I’m supposed to collect all the tasks under their associated projects. Again, that phrase supposed to is key. I’m continually striving to get better, but it’s been a rough road so far. A number of the tasks are associated with projects that have made their way into Todoist. I’m only keeping active projects in Todoist now, so that number is a bit more manageable than my entire universe of projects. And an evens smaller number of those tasks actually go onto the plan for the upcoming week.

Of course, all of this is predicated on my supposed to steps happening. Since that’s been such a battle, my sense of overwhelm has only diminished a little bit at present. There is still so much hanging out there that should be done. I do know that during weeks when I actually do my brain dumps, then do my review, collect the projects into my project list and then associate the tasks I’ve written down into their projects I feel a lot better. I’m more at ease, knowing that I’ve got a plan. If that planning is coupled with following my task list from Todoist each day then I really feel good about where I’m headed. Unfortunately, getting all those big if’s into play in the same week has been tough. I know that I’ll be better off if I take the time to plan and then execute the plan (heck, I wrote a series of posts about Focus, Commit, Execute, and Complete way back in 2013) but actually making the time to execute the planning steps has been hard for me to implement.

So as we’re rounding the bend and heading into the latter parts of 2016, I’m making a more concerted effort to actually follow my own advice. The main goal is to reduce my sense of overwhelm by recognizing that I can’t do everything. I need to make decisions about how much I can actually accomplish in a week. I need to fight the urge to have the never-ending todo list, and rather lay out a set of projects and tasks that I can actually accomplish. And they have to be things that are reasonable to accomplish within my hectic life. That means there are going to be hiccups, detours, and disasters that I can’t account for during the planning. That’s just life. What I need to do is recognize that those things are going to be out there and then be willing to roll with the punches.

As a hard-driving perfectionist, it’s hard for me to give up on some of the things that hit my lists. Heck, it feels like failure when I say I’m not going to do something. I’ve got to fight that feeling and simply recognize that some things will get done, and many, many other things won’t. If I can get better at doing the right things, in the right timeframes, then maybe I can alleviate my sense of overwhelm, get more things that should be done accomplished, and generally do better at life.

At least that’s the plan.

How about you, are you feeling overwhelmed? If you are, what steps can you start taking today to help get you out of that feeling and back on the road to productivity?