Do you feel overwhelmed, behind schedule and stressed out most days? We tend to over-commit our schedules, bite off more than we can chew and often have an overzealous belief that we can somehow manage it all. But in the end, this routine is basically training us to fail. It tends to make us prove to ourselves that we can’t follow through with the things we intend to.
While the impact is subtle, it is consistent. And repetition is how our brain learns. The scary thing is that this process is eroding confidence, happiness and employee engagement on a daily basis. Consequently, these negative beliefs become ingrained into the subconscious and carried forward the rest of our lives. These beliefs can appear at the core of every single insecurity and fear often gets in the way of time management.
To combat this, we set might more unrealistic goals and over-commit to a long to-do list. Doing this makes us feel good each morning and motivates us with the anticipation of all the things we could accomplish that day. But the process almost always ends in overwhelming, unfinished work and a shot to our self-confidence when we leave the office. In other words, we perpetuate the same problem.
When you plan your day, always remember that your brain is going to make you feel that you need to do more than is realistically possible. In the morning, remind yourself of this, take a step back, take more time to assess your priorities. Try, if possible, to choose just three core priorities each day that you can fully commit to completing. Of course, you will have other things to do, but everything else should come second to those three core goals.
Start with the most difficult task. If you can clear the most difficult task off your plate first, you can pat yourself on the back and will have a mental edge for completing the other “easier” tasks on your list.
It is also a good idea to train yourself to say “no”. Adopt the belief that always saying yes leads to stress. The reason we often have a hard time saying no is because we fear letting others down and worry that we won’t be perceived as competent. So, in effect, we often find ourselves people-pleasing instead of prioritizing.
To be successful, it’s important to make our dreams big, exciting and unrealistic. However, in order to get there, we need to plan each day as realistic as possible.
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