If you feel a sense of overwhelm when considering your “to do” list, your mental load, invisible labor and perhaps actual jobs, commitments and responsibilities, you are not alone. As writer Brad Montague put it recently, “toomuchery.”
I have a process that has never let me down when I need to remove some “stuff” from the weight on my shoulders. I call it the Slash and Burn, and maybe you’d like to use it too. I’ve written about this before (and use it with clients all the time), but this time I put a little more process behind it so that you can successfully repeat the this in your own life. Here is a five-category review to ruthlessly slice things out of your purview. Keep going until you feel lighter and more at peace.
I: Calendar
Go through your calendar and start removing things. Too many things in one day or week? Find some items to move or remove. Regretting that you signed up for that networking breakfast right before you have to teach a 5-hour workshop? Respectfully decline. Gold star if you begin assessing things before they go on your calendar to see if you have energy and capacity for it at that time. The goal is to find enough blank space that you can breathe.
II: Actual To-Do List
What can just go away? What can be done by someone else? What can be revisited in 90 days, or 6 months that you can allow yourself to set down for now, with a reminder when to revisit it.
III: Super-Secret Mental Load
I guess I really exploded over dinner once (to the surprise and chagrin of my family) that I was really fried on meal planning. They said outburst, I say it was the first time I just spoke honestly about it out loud. (So perhaps, both are true) My partner just said, “I’ll do it.” Believe me when I tell you I had no idea just how much energy and frustration I was pouring into finding recipes, looking at the calendar for when those would match our schedule, adding the ingredients to the grocery list, buying the groceries, and making the food. All so no one would eat it. All of this is to say, if you have some mental load items you are harboring, farm them out to kids, partners, technology, or pay helpers.
IV: Energy Vampires
Look for tasks, commitments, places and people that are Energy Vampires; they suck an inordinate amount of energy from you. Find every way to reduce either your contact with them, or adjust your mindset about them so you don’t blow so much of your rocket fuel. For example, maybe you can’t fully avoid your in-laws, but you can stop handing them your energy.
V: Ongoing Commitments
I had a committee assignment once that I absolutely DREADED. Any time I had to e-mail, communicate, or show up in any way related to this role, I was completely filled with dread and stress. Once I realized this, I let the leader know I needed to end my term.
They will carry on without me! Somehow! Some way! (I’m kidding, they were more than fine.)
If you don’t feel lighter, you’re not done yet. Keep slicing and dicing. Enjoy!
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