How to Prioritize
Return to Shut Off the "Spin Cycle:" 5 Steps for Getting Your Act Together

Shut Off the "Spin Cycle:" 5 Steps for Getting Your Act Together

If you feel like you're being pulled in different directions or constantly spinning in circles, here’s how to stay the course — and start crossing items off your to-do list.

2 Comments: Shut Off the "Spin Cycle:" 5 Steps for Getting Your Act Together

  1. There’s no way I’d curate a list this detailed. My lists are bare bones musts. However, I do add to the list everything else I get done in the course of the doing those musts. I try to make daily chores as friction-less as possible, with everything I need to do them right there at hand for when I’m in that space and it occurs to me to do the thing. I give myself credit on the list and at the end of the day my checked off items are usually sufficient to be proud of. My brain never used to let me remember everything I got done, which perpetuated feelings of worthlessness, and now I don’t let that happen.

  2. I like this method of prioritizing one’s daily “to-do” actions. The trouble I have is not so much in getting done the “musts” or even some of the “oughts” in a day’s time. It’s that, with my brain, being “Interest” driven, rather than “oughts” driven, I not only feel fatigued by a day of just doing the “musts and oughts”, but I have an almost unbearable craving for some of the “wants”. And “wants” include doing ANYTHING that “interests” me, rather than “shoulds” me.

    A day spent doing only “musts” and “oughts” feels like a day when I’ve missed something that I NEED. To counteract this inner craving, I often stay up very, very late–doing something that actually INTERESTS me, that saisfies my mental craving.

    While I will “celebrate” and feel happy that I’ve accomplished my “musts and oughts”, I don’t ever (will probably not ever) feel much REAL pleasure in DOING them. So, it’s like “When will this feel good to me?”

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