5 Ways to Avoid Death by To Do List Sometimes life is overwhelming. We load ourselves up with goals, plans, intentions, action steps and to do lists that make us feel like overwhelmed underachievers. At the beginning of the year, we are particularly guilty of this since we get swept up in the "New Year, New Resolution" craze that has us planning to lose 10 pounds, meet the man (or woman) of our dreams, write a book, get a job that pays $20k more a year, keep vegetables from rotting in our refrigerator drawers and visit the gym 3 times a week. While there is nothing wrong with ambition and drive, if you try to accomplish all of your goals at the same time, you may find yourself on the kitchen floor clutching a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream and shoveling it into your mouth. To avoid such an unfortunate scene, try these five tips: 1: Clean up Although I have used cleaning house as a procrastination technique for years, when you are overwhelmed, it actually has some merit. Bulging piles of paper on our desks increase the feelings of helplessness and despair. So to create space for a clean mind: Clean off your desk. Recycle or shred unnecessary documents. File projects that you are not currently working on. Remove clutter or knick-knacks that don't amuse you or that you don't use every day in your work. Take everything off the desk and wash it down. Clean your monitor and keyboard. Put back only the essential paperwork that you need right now. Clean out your email inbox. Create a folder system that will allow you to easily file and access emails you want to save. Delete non-essential items that you don't have time to read. Instead of responding to personal emails with your usual 3-paragraph response, send back a one-liner "Thank you so much for writing! Things are busy here - I just wanted to tell you I appreciate hearing from you. More later." Clean your bedroom. If you only have time to clean two rooms in your house, make it your office and your bedroom. Your bedroom is your sanctuary where you rest and rejuvenate. Wash your sheets and put out a nice candle and beautiful flower that you can see from your bed. If you have time, by all means clean the rest of your house. 2: Whack your to do list in half Do you really need to bake cupcakes from scratch for your daughter's birthday party? On any given day, there are rarely more than two important things that you must do. One is breathe. The other is feed your children, if you have any and they are not old enough to feed themselves. Besides these two things, everything is negotiable. You could use Steven Covey's Time Management Matrix from page 151 of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to sort your activities:   Urgent Not Urgent Important I ACTIVITIES: Crises Pressing Problems Deadline-driven projects II ACTIVITIES: Prevention Relationship Building Recognizing new opportunities Planning, recreation Not Important III ACTIVITIES: Interruptions, some calls Some mail, some reports Some meetings Proximate, pressing matters Popular activities IV ACTIVITIES: Trivia, busy work Some mail Some phone calls Time wasters Pleasant activities If you can whack off activities from quadrants III and IV, you will free up time. 3: Outsource You can outsource many things these days. Hire an accountant to take care of your taxes. Hire a housecleaning service to do a monthly deep cleaning of your house. If you are a "solopreneur," hire a virtual assistant to automate your business processes and handle routine administrative details. If you are concerned about spending money, realize that if you balance your outsourcing with revenue-driving activities (increasing your business, finding a new, better-paying position, finding higher-yield investment vehicles for your money) it will be worth the extra expense. 4: Talk to someone about how you feel If you have a friend with a sympathetic ear, tell him or her how you are feeling. Simply articulating how you feel will relieve some stress. Discuss together how you may reduce your workload. Ask for support if you need it. Your friend may be happy to help you sort through papers if doing so feels overwhelming. Be sure to return the favor when your friend feels overwhelmed. 5: Take a day off This may seem like a wildly counter-intuitive thing to do when you don't have time to comb your hair, let alone spend 8 hours doing nothing. But when you feel overwhelmed, you need to take time off. Take a walk in the woods, visit a museum or go sledding. A word of caution: do not spend the day parked in front of the TV. While vegging out in front of the tube is fun and relaxing, it will not unplug you from your environment and give you a different perspective on your life. For tips on taking a day off, read my blog post Call in Well Today. Life is more than a gigantic to do list. It is meant to be savored and enjoyed. So stop trying to do it all and just focus on what really matters. I guarantee you will feel much better. In my blog Escape from Cubicle Nation I write about 5 entries a week on topics related to helping people in corporate jobs break out and start their own business. Here are some recent posts: Do you know how you feel? What is your soundtrack? Go in search of your people My manifesto I am grateful for the snot on my sweater If you want to be notified of new posts, you can sign up in the box in upper right corner that says "Sign up here - and I'll let you know when I post." Not a Get a Life Subscriber yet? 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