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I am sure we have all had days when there are ten million things to do and only a few hours to get them done.  You find yourself stressing about all these things that you have to do and subconsciously repeat them in your head so you do not forget them.

The problem with doing this is you are wasting valuable brain storage and thought process with remembering all of these things.  What I find very useful is to write everything I need to do down somewhere.  Typically this is a piece of paper or a white board – somewhere very accessible.

I then forget everything that I need to do and just remember where the piece of paper is.  Now that I have cleared my mind, I read the items on the paper and choose one to do.  Typically I choose the ones I can accomplish the quickest – so I can have the self satisfaction of removing as many things off the list as I can.  Of course, sometimes there is one item that is most urgent – so I do that one first.

Once I complete an item, I cross it off the list and forget about it.  If a new item arises, I add it to the list.  I only think about one item at a time – the one I am currently working on.  When I have finished that item and crossed it off, I peruse the list to find the next thing to work on.

I find in this way I do not stress about what needs to be done.  I only need concern myself with completing the task on hand and find myself free to think about it clearly.  Sometimes I even handle my phone calls this way.  While I am working on something important, I will ignore all calls – adding a new item to my list called “listen to messages” and then proceed to finish the task at hand.

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