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So how’s it going?” I asked Fiorella, the head of sales at a midsize technology company that’s a client of mine. Fiorella and I speak once a week.
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“I have a tremendous amount on my plate,” she responded. “I have performance issues with several sales-people in Asia; my U.S. team doesn’t seem to get the new direction we’re moving in—or if they do get it, they’re resisting it. Also, I need to have a strategy conversation with Jean [the head of Europe] and a different one with Leena [the CEO], and that’s just the first few things on my to-do list.”
She needed a minute to take a breath. What she said next surprised me.
“There’s so much to do,” she said, “that it’s hard to get anything done.”
Her statement surprised me, but it shouldn’t have, because I’ve experienced the same thing. You’d think it would be the opposite—that when we have a lot to do, we become very productive in order to get it done—and sometimes that happens.
But often, especially when we have too much to do, we freeze. Or we move frantically, spinning without traction.
Because when there’s so much competing for attention, we don’t know where to begin, so we don’t begin anywhere.
It reminds me of a research study conducted by Dr. Sheena Iyengar, the management professor at Columbia University Business School, whom I wrote about several chapters ago. As you might recall, this was the study where a group of people was offered samples of six different jams available for purchase while another group was presented with twenty-four different jams. The six-jam group was ten times more likely to actually purchase a jam. Because the greater the options, the more difficult it becomes to choose a single one, so we end up choosing none.
That’s what happens when we’ve got too many things to do. We look busy. We seem to be moving. But in reality, we get very little done.
In those moments, we need a way to disperse the fog of overwhelm. We need to break down the tasks into chunks and begin to work through them.
Anne Lamott describes this moment beautifully in her book Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’ ”
That’s great advice. It’s like paying down credit card debt. You may have a huge, intimidating amount to pay. But there’s only one way to responsibly handle it: week by week. Each week, put a little aside—more than the interest and more than you’re adding to the card—and eventually it will get paid off.
But our lives are more scattered and complex than a report on birds or credit card debt. So we need another level of organization, not to make sure that everything gets done but to make sure the right things get done.
That’s where a structured to-do list can be helpful. But it has to be simple—otherwise, creating your to-do list becomes one more thing on your to-do list. Thankfully, you’ve already got the structure.
You already know the five (or so) things your year is about. Well, those things need to be the foundation—the organizing map—for your day. Because, like paying down credit card debt, the way to make an impact on your areas of focus for the year is by spending your time focusing on those areas. Every day.
So when you create your to-do list, do it in the categories of your five things. Then add a sixth category, titled The Other 5%. Mine, for a particular day, looks like this:
Do Great Work with Current Clients
Call John to set up interviews.
Attract Future Clients
Write and Speak About My Ideas
Be Present with Family and Friends
Have Fun and Take Care of Myself
The Other 5%
This structure helps me carve up my overwhelm into manageable, digestible chunks. And it ensures I’m spending my time where I should. Because saying I want to focus on something is meaningless unless I actually spend my time there. And my to-do list is my plan for where I’m going to spend my time.
But this structure offers more than simplicity and focus and a way to get started. It also offers information about how I’m treating each area of focus, how they stack up relative to one another, and the kinds of things I’m doing to move forward in them.
If you look above, you’ll see that, for this particular day, my Do Great Work with Current Clients activities far outweigh my Attract Future Clients activities. That’s fine for a particular day. But if I notice that it’s a trend—that for the entire month my current-client work is full and my future-client work is empty—then I know I need to begin to generate activity in that area if I want to move forward and grow my business.
This is particularly useful when trying to decide between two competing demands on your time. If I’m trying to decide between two meetings—both important—I can look at the trend of where I’m spending my time and make the choice based on which area of focus has been lagging. It helps me stay balanced.
On the other hand, my Have Fun and Take Care of Myself list also has only one thing in it. But I might decide that it’s fine. That between my writing and my family and my friends (all of which give me tremendous energy), I’m getting what I need to take care of myself.
I might also notice that The Other 5% is always full, very administratively focused, and taking more than 5 percent of my time. That might be an indication that I should hire an admin person or delay some of those things until I have more time in my schedule.
Fiorella and I worked through her list, putting each to-do item in its category. We realized that many things didn’t fit in any of her areas of focus. Which was part of her problem. She was spending time worrying about things that weren’t going to get her where she wanted to go, so we culled those. After a few minutes, she had an organized view of what she needed to do and how it was going to move her forward. The fog of overwhelm had dissipated.
She was still frighteningly busy. She still had a tremendous amount to do. But she was no longer frozen. Because she was choosing from six jams, not twenty-four, and was ten times more likely to choose one and start working.
Reduce your overwhelm by putting your tasks in an organized list, focused on what you want to achieve for the year.
