Fast and Effective Mind Clearing - Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about what I do when I start feeling overwhelmed by what I've got on my plate.

And the way I like doing a good mind sweep typically leaves me with a big stack of index cards with an idea or to-do or task on each of them.

Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes, all I want is to see all of them and then start handling them by category.

But many times, while that leaves me feeling much better (because now all of those ideas are out of my head), I still feel like there's too much on my plate.

And that's exactly what I experienced a couple of weeks ago.

I had a good three-inch stack of index cards. Lots of stuff there to consider doing.

So here's what I did next:

First, I let the stack sit for a couple of days. I wanted to give myself some "distance" from all those items.

Then, I put the stack in a ziplock baggie to make them easier to carry and went to my favorite coffee shop. There is something about getting away from my home office/studio when I want to get a different perspective on what I'm doing.

Once I was settled in with a wonderful cup of tea at a fairly big table, I spread out the index cards and started grouping them in different ways. I had categories for home projects (painting, minor repairs I wanted to do, etc.), phone calls to make, errands to run, decisions to make, projects I was working on, things I needed to take care of with my car, furniture I wanted to paint, fun ideas I was considering, and so on.

I shuffled and rearranged and regrouped the cards into different stacks.

And seeing those items in different ways, grouped into different categories, helped me see what I was actually committed to doing right now.

Some of the items were important to get done, so those were keepers.

Others were items that I knew would feel great to get done, and I was ready and able to do them.

Many were good ideas or 'shoulds' or 'this-would-be-nice' items...and I realized I wasn't committed to doing them right now.

Some of them I wasn't inspired about.

So I started eliminating as many as I could.

I took them off my plate.

And I took them off my future plate, too.

If I wasn't inspired about and committed to doing them now, or within the next week or so, I tossed the index card.

I have learned that keeping a big list of backlog items to do "when I have the time" may sound like a great idea, but in reality just keeps me feeling constantly behind.

I have learned to trust that if something is important enough for me to do, it will occur to me again later at a time when I am ready and able to do it. Or not.

So I tossed and shredded and eliminated.

And when I was done, I had a few very small stacks of index cards with things I was inspired, ready, able to do now.

I then put those action items in my planner (for those of you who haven't heard me talk about planners, I use a Planner Pads paper planner) in their own categories, and tossed the remaining index cards.

For me, keeping a task list separate from my planner pretty much guarantees that those items will not get done. :) That's just me; you might prefer having a separate task list.

So what started as a mind full of ideas and to-dos ended up as a nice, small, do-able list of actions I was fully committed and ready to do...and they are easily getting done.

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