As a mother, I have always been a fan of checklists. They helped me to stay focused, and I loved the feeling I got when I scratched something off the list. The list served two purposes for me, it acted as referee, Nadine vs. The Day (and I was determined to win), it also reminded me to stay busy. There was a time in my life where I thought that being busy was productive. As long as I was constantly in motion I felt I was acting like a top performer. I even thought the longer the list, the better business woman and mother I was, after all busy = productive.
The problem was my lists were not always getting completed. I found myself getting distracted, uninterested and at times rebelling against the list. The list was not making me feel good, the list was making me resentful. I wanted to crumble it up! After all who was this piece of paper to delegate my time without taking into account my wants, desires, and needs? I felt that my list was really selfish, it only cared about doing and I was starting to feel unvalued and taken advantage of.
One day I threw my list out; that was quite a liberating feeling! I went about my day and felt so empowered. I was open to do what I wanted when I wanted. My inner voice was Cartman’s from South Park saying, “I do what I want”. It was the same joy as going away for college, moving out of my parent’s house, or even taking a trip to Target without children, I was free! No one can tell me what to do! However as the day went on I started to feel a little stressed without my list. I started to feel guilty that maybe I wasn’t being productive enough and nervous I may have forgot something.
I slowly pulled my list out the garbage can (don’t judge) and looked over it. That is when the light bulb came on and I put my behavior analyst hat on. The reason I didn’t like my list, outside of equating busy is productive, was because it was not fun. It had me feeling like I was working from the time I opened my eyes to the time I closed them. This list was also having an impact on my marriage making me angry that my husband wasn’t as busy. How dare he rest!
I walked over to my desk, grabbed a new piece of paper, and started to take a deeper look at my list and my day. What time was my energy dwindling away? Where was the disconnect between my list and I? Determined to find the answer, I wrote down the times I was losing interest in my list, the times I felt I couldn’t focus as well as the activities or tasks I was struggling with the most. Suddenly, I started to notice patterns around certain tasks and times.
The patterns were showing me times I performed best and with what tasks. I knew that I wanted more information so I started to take data. I wanted to know how long I can work without getting distracted at different times of the day doing different things. This helped me to optimize the way I prioritize so I was now planning things at the right time, instead of just writing an endless list. I then thought about things I would like to do that were not on my list like relax, read a book, self-care, scroll on Facebook or Pinterest, meditate, do nothing, play,etc. I added my likes to my new piece of paper.
The information that I had gathered helped me to better understand my resentment with this list. It uncovered the need for me to have things that are also enjoyable on the list. So, I looked at what I found challenging and outsourced some and broke down the others into smaller steps. In between the smaller steps I scheduled in things I liked so that I was getting rewarded for doing things I found harder. I now loved this list, it no longer felt like something that ruled my life, it felt more like a support system that valued me.
After changing the mindset that busy equals productive and adopting balance equals happiness, I have been the most productive ever with the hugest results! It was mind blowing that I was now doing things I said I had no time for like relaxing, reading a book, taking a long bubble bath, even catching up with friends all because I no longer followed a list that set me up to fail. Instead I put together a system that supported me and in turn made me a happier wife, mom and lucrative entrepreneur.