What needs to come off your to-do list?

I love a list. To-do lists, packing lists, shopping lists, reading lists, lists of the things I want to experience and enjoy each season... the list of lists goes on!

Give me a project whether it’s booking a holiday or moving an archive and the first thing I’ll do is start a list. When I still had a 9 to 5 job the last thing I’d do every night was re-write my to-do list and the first thing each morning I’d prioritise that list.

I think you’ve grasped by now my love of a list. But, like everyone else, I have to admit that there are sometimes things on those lists that have been there for weeks, sometimes months and occasionally years. And, those things, even if they were put there with the best of intentions sap my energy, make me feel guilty and even like a failure. They are no good at all for my confidence levels.

If I cast my mind back to earlier last year, start running again was on my list of things to do every single week from January onwards and every week that it didn’t happen I just felt a little bit worse about myself until eventually around Easter I just took it off the list altogether. I was, after all, getting out for a 20 to 30 minute walk most days so it was time to stop beating myself up. It was like lifting a weight off my shoulders. And, as it happens by around May I did feel like putting my running shoes on and up until my cancer diagnosis at the end of July I was running two or three times a week. It made me feel great but all those weeks of not running and beating myself up for it hadn’t made me do it any sooner. Taking it off the list had been the right move.

I had a lovely client who was beating herself up for not getting up at 6am every day to do, in her words, “all the things that good and successful mums do” before the children wake up. You know the sort of thing – exercise, journal, meditate, work on your side-hustle. There is nothing wrong with getting up at 6am and doing all these things or even just having time for a coffee in silence and a shower without a little person demanding your attention. But, as I helped her to explore what was going on she told me that she and her husband are both naturally night owls. They never go to bed until well after midnight. Knowing this about themselves when they were looking for a house they wanted one as close as possible to the primary school their children would be attending. Like, two doors down close so they could get up at 8am and still have the children in school on time without loads of stress. This did not equate to someone who was now beating herself up for not being up at 6am working on her side hustle and improving her health. She was telling herself that she was lazy and a bad mum because she wasn’t up at six every day.

I am a morning person and I was exhausted listening to her 6am list. We talked through what she could change in order to make this happen, like going to bed well before midnight and it just wasn’t her. “What would happen if you just let go of this idea that you have to be up at 6am?” I asked.

I kept questioning until she was clear about which of these things were actually important to her, rather than things she just thought she ought to be doing, and then worked out what time those things could realistically be done. By the end of the call she’d let go of a few of the things on the list. Completely let go of the idea that those things had to be done before 8am and she was happier and lighter for it. The guilt had gone. She no longer felt a failure because she wasn’t planning to set a 6am alarm.

Have a think about your own to-do list. What’s on there that is causing you guilt at the moment because it isn’t happening? Is there a gym that you never visit? Is it time to let go of the idea that you are the sort of person who goes to the gym regularly and find another way of exercising that suits you better? Or is it that the gym you belong to is never going to work for you? Do you need a gym that is closer to work rather than home? Do you need a gym that is friendlier?

Like my client do you need to let go of the idea of trying to be a morning person when you really aren’t?

I really can vouch for the relief of admitting this just isn’t going to happen right now and taking it off that list. Do yourself a favour and let go of that unnecessary stress and guilt. Who needs more of that in their life?