Daily Digest: No. 9
Is every stitch on the needle going to be knit at the same time? Um, of course not.
Does every plant in the garden need to be watered at the same minute as all of the others? Do they even need the same amount of water?! That’s a big NO.
Just because an item is on your to-do list doesn’t mean it’s of the utmost, super-critical, must-be-done-right-now importance level.
I’m only telling you this because it took me about 43 years to figure it out for myself and I want to save you some struggle.
When I make a big list of all the things I need to do I instantly get overwhelmed. Like I can feel my body heating up and the tears coming to my eyes. I see that huge list and extrapolate all the time it’s going to take and then I totally meltdown because LOOK AT THAT LIST!
I’ve tried to break this terror habit of mine several ways over the years. I would divide the big list into days aligning things on each day of the week. Or for a while, I’d chunk all of the items up by category like marketing, sales, accounting, etc.
I’ve tried batching my work a few times because I’ve read articles on how great it is and how much more efficient it makes your working hours. To me, it just equaled overwhelm again because I’d see ALL of those blog posts I was SUPPOSED to write that day. GAH!
Needless to say, none of these methods stuck for me. It was an endless rollercoaster of highs and lows with some work getting long the way.
About a year ago the Being Boss community did a book club on Atomic Habits by James Clear. Through them, I learned about the Eisenhower Matrix and it makes so much sense to me.
It’s a simple graph created by President Dwight Eisenhower breaking up tasks into four categories based on urgency and importance. Take a look at this version James Clear created for himself.
Graphic c/o jamesclear.com
This is is incredibly effective for me and maybe it will be for you, too!
I can take some time to write out a list of everything I need to do, close my eyes, and instantly see what’s important and urgent versus those things that are not urgent and not important.
It’s shocking to me how a slight graphical change could make this much difference. Or maybe it isn’t since I’m a graphic designer and creating a hierarchy of information is, like, Day 1 of graphic design school.
I took a few minutes to rework the box shown above into how I see it.
First, I isolated one green box because I try to get one main thing done each day. That’s right, I don’t do a TOP 3 for the day, I do one thing.
Second, I created two yellow boxes because these are both less critical but I still manage to do them every day.
The Urgent/Not Important tasks are things like emailing customers and keeping up with my orders and basic marketing. I also removed “delegate” from this box because as a small business owner I don’t have anyone to delegate to!
In the Important/Not Urgent category I have longterm projects and things that need to get done but maybe not today specifically. I can pick and choose from these when I have some extra time in my day!
Third, rather than delete I went for “don’t bother”. Just a gentle reminder that you don’t have to do something.
If you suffer from IT’S ALL IMPORTANT syndrome like I do then maybe the Eisenhower Matrix can help you, too. Take a deep breath and remember that not everything is equally important.
