The blog

For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ​“Done!” pod­cast:

There are clouds on the horizon…

It is not a big deal if this should hap­pen once in a while. But, if it keeps hap­pen­ing day after day, the moun­tain of uncom­plet­ed and delayed tasks con­tin­ues to grow. Despite our eager­ness to get through all our tasks, new unfore­seen ones keep being added to the list and the feel­ing of falling behind instead of get­ting ahead hangs over you. This will over time both stress and tire you out.

Par­don­ing the postponed

Even if your plan fails and you do not have time to com­plete every­thing you had intend­ed to do, this might be alright any­way. Your esti­ma­tion of what you thought you would have time for need not nec­es­sar­i­ly have been an accu­rate and rea­son­able one. If more impor­tant tasks came up then you were right to pause your plan and do these instead. Per­haps you can live with these tasks being post­poned for just a lit­tle longer.

Put your foot down

But in order to know when it is alright to post­pone and when it is not, you need to make sure that you are com­fort­able with fac­ing the con­se­quences of rear­rang­ing your pri­or­i­ties when you need to do so.

Do this

So, if you already know that you will not have time to do all the things you want­ed to com­plete, make it absolute­ly clear to your­self right now which tasks you will have to do some oth­er time. Write them down on a note if you do not already have them on your to-do-list.

Go through all the tasks you will not have time for one by one and ask yourself:

• When will I most like­ly have time for it instead if I am being a tad pes­simistic (just to be on the safe side)?
• What will the con­se­quences of me doing it then instead of now be? (If you need to ask some­one else what the con­se­quences will be — for instance, the per­son you are doing the task for — then do so.)
• Would it be OK if I do not do the task right now — con­sid­er­ing the consequences?
• If yes, move the task’s due date so that you no longer see it on today’s to-do-list (since you will not do it today anyway).
• If no, rearrange your pri­or­i­ties and do it instead of some­thing that was pre­vi­ous­ly high­ly pri­or­i­tized. Or, do what you need to do to make sure the task gets done today: ask a col­league for help, hire some­one who will do it instead, or ask your boss to find some­one who can help you solve the prob­lem (since you need to pri­or­i­tize oth­er things you both agree you need to do first and foremost).

Free to focus

If you make a more con­scious deci­sion regard­ing what you actu­al­ly have time for and not, it will become eas­i­er to focus on the tasks you have decid­ed to do since you no longer have every­thing else hang­ing over you. You have made the con­scious deci­sion your­self and you have decid­ed that it is OK for these things to be post­poned and done at a lat­er date. You can relax know­ing that you have pri­or­i­tized accu­rate­ly and will not have to feel stressed by things you have con­scious­ly set aside for now.

What’s your way?

How do you set tasks aside when you know you will not have time to do them right now any­way and will just feel stressed if you keep them on today’s list? Feel free to email me and share your tips and thoughts.

(Do you know that it may give you relief to help oth­ers when you are feel­ing stressed?)