Organized? Not really.
Are you organized? Not handling tasks well is a sign of over-schedule.
Mind skipping from task to task
Symptoms of over-scheduling:
- Inability to think clearly
- Moving from task to task without finishing any of them
- Constantly checking social media or email
- Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or listless
Staying with one task takes perseverance
Set yourself up for success by setting a timer. Make a pact with yourself. You will work on a task until the timer goes off. At first, start with fifteen minutes. If this is impossible, try five minutes.
Be kind to yourself but firm. You can do this if you keep at it.
Rethink priorities and plans to reorganize
You may need to do a mind dump. Keeping everything in mind is distracting. Write everything down, either on paper, or in an online app such as the Google Keep or another task tool.
Once everything is down in one place, you can start to rethink your priorities and projects. Organizing can be as simple as reordering your task list. Some tasks contain too many tasks and priorities.
How to reorganize your list:
- Pray over your list asking God for clarity and wisdom
- Go through the list looking for items you can delegate
- See if there are any items you can remove or consolidate
- Mark items which are long term goals that need to be broken down into smaller tasks
- Recommend tasks take no more than one hour of effort to finish. Tasks that are larger should be broken down.
- This makes it easier to see progress and reduce stress
- What can be accomplished today?
- Once you have made a list for today, review it to make sure it is realistic.
- Remove tasks from today’s list you won’t have time for
After these steps, your mind should feel more clear.
Moving schedules to meet deadlines
After organizing your list, you may need to adjust your deadline schedule. What can you realistically accomplish by the deadline? Should you push it back?
If your deadline can’t be moved, review the list to see what you can delay. Pray specifically for God to show you what to do next.
After following through on these items, you’ll be able to think more clearly and focus on your tasks for today.
