It’s that time of year again — the holidays! And I’m betting you’ve got a ton on your mind.
A lot of things to take care of, a lot of people to please, and a lot of places to go.
And being the ambitious go-getter you are, you’re probably starting, or thinking about, how to manage all those projects before year end.
But here’s the issue I see most often. (And by the way, this issue slows down your progress and intensifies your stress. So read closely).
Working on several projects simultaneously takes you longer to get through any of them, plus it diminishes your motivation along the way.
Here’s what I mean.
Let’s say you have a ton of tasks to get done to host the December holidays. They can be categorized into five “projects.”
1. Gift shopping
2. Preparing meals
3. Getting the guest room ready
4. Decorating
5. Completing small house repairs
About a month ahead of time you might spend a couple weekends doing a little bit on each of them.
- Make a list of a few things you know the kids want for Christmas
- Start pulling out possible recipes for different meals
- Change the comforter in the guest room (but leave the rest of the room overflowing)
- Start decorating the tree and do half the outside lights
- Spackle a few walls, but leave the painting, faucet change and blinds replacement for later
So now just a couple weeks before the holidays guess what you’d be left with?
Five. Unfinished. Projects.
Which feels like you’ve make no progress, still have a ton to do and mostly, leaves in a state of perpetual overwhelm. Your anxiety gets heavier and heavier each day when nothing is complete. In other words,
When you make some progress on many projects, you still end up with a bunch of unfinished projects.
Sound familiar?
Now let’s pretend you spent that first week plowing through ONE project like, decorating.
- You got the tree and ornaments up on Saturday
- You got up the outside lights on Sunday
- Over the course of the week, you switch up the accessories throughout your house
By the end of week “decorating” is complete, which means you can cross it off your list aaaaand…you are left with FOUR projects.
Yup, Four, no longer Five.
Repeat the process.
The next weekend you focus on ONE other project like, meal planning.
- You pull out your recipes
- You decide on your favorites and write down all your meals
- You make a list of ingredients for easy grocery shopping
- You plan when you need to start baking and cooking so you’re not doing it all last minute
Ok you mathematical genius, how many holiday projects are you left with by the end of week two?
Yes, Three!
And three projects left is a LOT less overwhelming than five projects left.
In the first scenario, when you made a little headway on all your projects, it felt like nothing got done because after a couple weeks you were still left with the same amount of unfinished projects that you started with. (You started with five and you still had five).
That leaves you feeling weighed down and super stressed. This can paralyze you from moving forward, or knowing where to put your attention next. Feeling so overwhelmed intensifies your procrastination, and believe me, you will find a dozen other things to do than to work on what really needs to get done.
By putting in small amounts of effort in many things, you’ll sabotage your ability to stay focused and efficiently get things done.
Whereas in the second scenario, where you started and completed your decorating and then your started and completed your meal planning, your result is a euphoric state of accomplishment, which fuels you to take more action.
Getting to the finish line makes you feel proud and excited about your creating a goal and conquering it.
Taking action that gives you quicker results is what keeps you motivated.
It’s doing what you need to do to complete a project before jumping into the next. That is how you alleviate a ton of stress and reach your goals faster.
Now I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too.
What do you think about this approach? And what’s ONE project you will start and finish to put this time saving, motivation inducing strategy into effect?
Let me know in the comments below sweet friend!
Here’s to getting more of the right things done!
Xo,
Mridu
Very interesting and I totally see your point. Isn’t this kind of “all or nothing” thinking though?
Keep up the great blog. I love reading all of your entries!