- Do you ever get to the end of the day and feel completely overwhelmed and discouraged because you barely accomplished anything on your to-do list?
- Is your mom brain on overdrive because you have too many “tabs open”?
- Do you feel like you’re never going to keep up with all the things you WANT to accomplish, let alone the things you HAVE to accomplish?
I went through a season like this a few months ago. Every night as I got ready for bed, I felt extremely discouraged by how little I had accomplished. It seemed like my to-do list got longer and longer. I spent my day attending to the urgent and not the important. I felt like I never got to move ahead with any ideas I had or things I wanted to do that weren’t absolutely necessary.
But to lay my head down on my pillow and think that I had accomplished absolutely nothing was not only a depressing way to end the day, but it was an absolute lie!
The thought occurred to me to think through my day and list out the things I actually DID do. I titled the list “I Did.” This is what my own personal list looked like:
- Served 3 meals
- Baked macaroni and cheese
- Called subscription company and negotiated contract
- Updated checkbook
- Communicated with my friend re: an upcoming trip
- Did the dishes
- Put chicken stock in the crockpot
- Played Legos with Jaden
- Reserved books from the library
- Made a schedule for the children’s workers at my church
- Referred my husband for a web design job
- Lead my MOPS table discussion
- Did a load of laundry
- Gave the kids a bath
- Got snacks for Jaden
- Rocked Mayson at naptime
- Looked over upcoming blog post ideas and wrote them down
- Looked at houses for sale in our desired neighborhood
- Read over email from bank lender re: buying a house
I won’t bore you with the mundane details, but I went on to do this on two more occasions. I probably got even more proficient at remembering every little thing because those lists had 32 and 33 items on them! They included things that are just a normal part of life like getting the kids dressed, setting the timer on the coffee pot, wiping down the kitchen counter, etc.
You know what happened after I did this? I didn’t feel silly or ridiculous! I felt PEACE! No longer could I berate myself for not getting anything done when I could list 33 things I accomplished that day! In fact, that list was way longer than the “to-do” list I had sitting on my kitchen table!
So what’s my point? You ARE accomplishing a lot, Mama! If you’re getting to the end of the day, feeling discouraged because you feel like you’re getting nowhere, I encourage you to sit down and make your own “I Did List”! I hope that, like me, you will experience a change of perspective and a sense of peace about what you ARE accomplishing! Maybe it’s not everything you WANTED to accomplish, but don’t beat yourself up saying, “I got nothing done today!” – because that is simply not true!
