On paper, you’re moving right along.
Finishing the client call. Answering the email. Picking up the groceries. Starting dinner.
Except now you’re making tacos and still thinking about something the client said at 10am…. while also trying to remember whether you sent that email or just composed it REALLY thoroughly in your head. (An important distinction.)
So you keep moving – and after a while, it starts feeling like you’re never quite caught up. Which is how you can check off 14 things by 3pm…. And still need another day to finish the one project you started this morning.
Because apparently finishing the client call and actually STOPPING thinking about the client call are two separate tasks.
But one day that starts feeling different. The task gets checked off… and your brain actually lets it stay crossed off. Which is a surprisingly different experience from simply checking it off your list.
Curators are QUITE familiar with this – the client call ended 6 hours ago, but apparently nobody told their brain….
That’s actually one of the five results on a short quiz I created. If you don’t know your archetype yet, you can find it at yourunbusylife.com/quiz.
The interesting part is that your to-do list only tracks what got completed.
Which feels a little unfair, considering it has NO record of the client conversation you replayed twice, the decision you’ve been debating since lunch, or the 6 times you stopped what you were doing to remember something else.
According to the list? Great day. 14 checkmarks. Very productive. 😉
Meanwhile, you’re making tacos with a client call from 10am and trying to remember whether you ever actually sent that email.
Which is how you can finish a LOT of things…. Without feeling particularly finished with any of them.
But the moms who seem to have a little more energy at the end of the day aren’t necessarily getting less done – their client call just doesn’t get invited to dinner.
The email they already sent doesn’t need another 20 minutes of wondering whether they worded it weird.
And tomorrow’s list can apparently survive without being reviewed from the couch tonight.
‘Til one day, checking something off actually means your brain agrees it’s over, too. Which would make that little checkmark considerably more useful. 😉
