Inundated by your 'to-do-list'?

Ever feel inundated by your 'to-do-list'? As a part-time, wanna-be-writer, I have a plethora of ideas sparking off in my brain at any one point and what feels like no time to formulate these on paper. As a part-time weight-management coach, I hesitate to admit that I'm all too aware of the importance of goal setting, living in-the-moment, etc, etc, but a recent relocation to Toronto has my mind doing summersaults--it's especially prone to gymnastics in the early hours of the morning. Before you start making any judgments over my competence as a weight-management coach, do bare in mind that coaches are nevertheless mere mortals like everyone else. I often wish that I could give my brain a good Spring-clean. Maybe, give it a good shake, like I would a rug. Or put it in the wash on, 'Normal'. Or, if I could get my computer guy to come over and perform a defragmentation every six weeks. Conscious of the fact that these are not viable options, I must seek another solution.

So yesterday I headed to Indigo for some inspirational advise on how to manage time--and life--better. Scouring bookshelves, my mind fills with images of my future-self indulging in plentiful free-time. In the bubble above my head, I'm leisurely sipping a cup of dulce & banana herbal tea, while perched on my couch, legs folded beneath me, either suspended in Afghan fiction, some pretentious prose, spurting off Italian--whatever catches my attention for a brief interlude, on my way to the self-development section. 

Four hours later, I emerge--hope resurrected. But, this lasts all of half a block. On my way home, I wonder which of the four books I should read first. Should I hurriedly, speed read my way through each tonight, in search of some nuggets of advice? Might I feel more inundated with so much information? So I start by opening book number one, The Pledge, by Michael Masterson. I speed read through the first two chapters. I like his approach. It has a few new twists compared with so many others on creating an 'Abundant Life'. In part three, Masterson shares with me how I can save 589 hours per year, which is the equivalent of fourteen 40-hour workweeks. Now that would be impressive, but this does make me wonder about my quality of life. In this scenario, I'm now taking two-minute showers, so I hardly have time to wash out the shampoo, never mind condition. I'm eating at my desk, I have the bed-time of an eight-year-old, as such, I'm missing Grey's Anatomy, and it gets worse. My heart starts into palpitations as I read about the parts of my early morning routine. The bubble above my head now consists of a disheveled looking woman, wearing one shoe, eating tuna out of a can rested on the kitchen counter (high protein breakfast), attempting to prop up an impotent section of the The Globe and Mail.

Masterson hails the pre-dawn activities of other entrepreneurs, such as Ben Franklin and Donald Trump. Including Masterson, these three have collectively walked, jogged, stretched, meditated, thought positively, read poetry and philosophy, written poetry, fiction and non-fiction, journalled, assigned tasks to assistants, eaten a high-protein breakfast while reading a dozen newspapers, completed numerous objectives in their respective businesses, and all before noon. Although I may come across as being facetious, I do indeed commend anyone able to achieve all of this by noon. Truth be told, I am envious of their steadfast ability to prioritize as they do. In my world, the following quote seems more applicable:

Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.

--Natalie Goldberg

In comparison with Masterson and his team of high-achievers, I’m feeling not inspired, but a bit defeated, if not a tad inundated again. But, before I start highlighting the obvious differences of sex and turning this into a feminist blog, with Michael, Ben and Donald on one side, and Natalie and I on the other, I have to own up to the fact that I have no family hanging out of my apron strings, nor a conventional, full-time job. The usual scapegoats do not apply. My recent inability to structure my life, namely, complete my daily tasks and write, is entirely my own fault.

So in a further attempt to delay the inevitable, I promptly pull out book number two: Your Writing Coach, by Jurgen Wolff. The unavoidable first chapter is all about fear—the fear of rejection, the fear of success, the fear that it won’t be good enough, the fear of revealing too much, the fear that you will be overwhelmed by research. As a weight management coach and human being I know all about these fears. In my therapy training I analyzed all of these fears in relation to myself ‘till the cows came home, turning blue in the face. Whenever I want to make a change, resistance always raises its formidable head. Resistance is a strange phenomenon. As Peter F. Drucker aptly stated:

What you have to do and the way you have to do it are incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it is another matter.

Wolff offers some advice about fear; “…put them aside now and focus your attention and your energy on what only you can write.” So I put my fears aside….oh, but I must develop a writing schedule, so onto book number three.

In Kelly L. Stone’s smart, little book, Time to Write, she offers many routines to chose from, such as the early-morning writer, to the after-hours writer, to the blitz-writer, to the mini-blocks-of-time writer, to the any-opportunity writer. Too many choices. Nike’s little checkmark appears in the bubble above my head. So I leave book number four. I just write.

When I feel inundated, I know that beneath all the indecision, there lies my intuition. It’s so simple that I sometimes doubt it. Should this not be more complicated? Whether you call it the inner-self, your essence, or your soul, allow yourself a moment to listen to that untapped source within, and then ‘Just do it’.