6 weeks until the end of the year.

Sorry for the shock, but it’s true, and when I realized this yesterday, and I looked at my “Before the End of the Year To Do” list, panic set in…

My heartbeat sped up

My shoulder tensed and rose

My breath got shallow

I wanted to run out of my office and hide under the bed, or do the dishes. Or rearrange my couch cushions, or clean the windows, or organize the dusty toolbox in the garage…anything but face the reality that I only had 6 weeks to get all this done.

I took a deep breath and tried to recall all the time and priority management tools I’d learned over the years, and I put them in action.

1. Priorities: I looked at the list and decided which ones were priorities. I also identified 3 things that I could do in January if I needed to…taking a little of the pressure off. Shoulders dropped a little.

2. Schedule: I plugged those priorities into each week, so now instead of looking at the whole list (and the small bit of calendar left) I was looking at bite sized pieces. Heart rate slowed.

3. START! I’m a big fan of the 10 minute rule. Scary/boring/terrible task you’re dreading? Set a timer for 10 minutes and START. When the timer goes off, if you’re still dreading and resisting it, STOP! Go do something else and come back to it after! At least you got 10 minutes done. (But 99% of the time, when the timer goes off I have momentum and I finish the task.)

START 2.0: When it’s a big task that’s going to take a long time, I’ll set my timer for 30 minutes and start. The to-do for today is “do 30 minutes of …” Or maybe it’s “Get 5 of … done” Whatever the case, breaking it down into bite sized pieces has helped me tackle those dreaded duties!

This is my struggle today, so I figured maybe some of you were drowning in your to-do too, and could use this!

Go get ’em Tiger!

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