So my latest client came to me with this question, which I thought was so great I wanted to share with you:
I’m steadily working my way through my giant to-do list, which feels really good to do. I can see I’m making progress. But what concerns me is that I’m *still* not getting enough done in a day! I’m still putting too many tasks on my mid-afternoon project time, and just not getting them crossed off. It’s like I magically run out of energy when I arrive at that time of day. Which is really annoying because I’ve specifically set aside that hour or so for me to catch up on my to-do list! Can you help me?
So, what I told her is that first off, she’s doing everything right. (And you are too, if you’re doing this.)
She’s scheduled a project time of day for every weekday, and she’s actually showing up and tackling her to-do’s.
But the speed at which she gets through them is not something we can necessarily overcome, especially if she’s got a years’-long stack-up of to-dos.
That’s a case of “either they’re important, or they’re not” – and if they’re not, take them off your to-do list.
So what it sounds to me is going on here is that discouragement, that frustration, about not being able to move through fast enough. She feels like one or two a day is not cutting it.
But the catch is, that’s exactly the right amount.
When you have a business, and kids, and a house to keep up with, you don’t have *time* for any more than one or two things off your projects list!
But what I encouraged my client about is that maybe she *can* tweak something about *which* to-do’s she chooses when she’s planning for the week.
In other words, use cycle syncing.
If you’re perpetually grabbing the top-most-important tasks and dumping those on your weekly calendar, then not wanting to do them AT ALL, yet you know they’re still important….
You may want to try cycle syncing.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s just the hormonal productivity cycles we women have due to actually going through menstruation each month – but it really affects your productivity.
Because one week you’re totally low energy, another you’re super high, and the other two weeks you’re kind of medium. (And of course there’s a lot more that goes into this.)
But bottom line, if it’s your period week and you put “call the doctor’s office to fight about insurance coverage” on your list, I don’t think it’s going to go very well.
You might want something more like “review recipes to choose my favorites” or “browse Christmas gift ideas for extended family” or something like that. Whatever’s going to feel easy and relaxing, yet still useful, to you.
Now, smack in the middle of your cycle, on ovulation week, when your hormones are flowing and they’re juicing you up with energy? Sure, call the insurance. They won’t even phase you. And you’ll be off to another to-do after that.
And then for those other two weeks in your cycle, before your period starts, those are your regular to-do weeks. As in, you *can* call the insurance if you want to, but that had better be your only to-do for the day – you’re going to be tired out after doing it. (But it’ll still have gotten done.)
So just watch your cycle and the energy required for each task, and try to match the two of them up when you’re picking to-dos for the week off your giant list.
Because you may be putting the proper amount of tasks on each day’s list, but then feeling totally uninspired or out of sync with what’s on tap for that day.
And if so, cycle syncing is going to make a huge difference to you.
So what about you, my listener? Does it sound like you need cycle syncing to the rescue?
If so, go do a little googling about it, and see if matching your tasks to your energy levels for a month removes your to-do list frustrations.
It very well may be the secret key that just fixes everything for you.
