Like many people, I function as a result of my many to-do lists. I have one for each of my writing projects, one for household management, a create a new list everyday, and I frequently have a bigger picture list running for the week or month.
But even though these lists help me remember to do things and keep me accountable, they don’t keep me from beating myself up for all the things I haven’t done.
I think this is a product of my perfectionism, my compulsion to always do more, be better. My natural inclination is to focus on where I lack rather than where I triumph.
To that end, when I was about a year out of college and in the grips of depression, I decided to start finding the small triumphs in life. Did I successfully parallel park? Triumph. Did I fold my laundry? Triumph. This ultimately helped me hack my brain into thinking more positively and it’s a practice I maintain.
However, I’ve noticed that as my life as become more complicated, I’ve begun to fall back into negative patterns of thinking. I’ve gone back to beating myself up over what I haven’t achieved. I lie awake at night thinking about everything I still need to do, as though completing my to-do list is some kind of competition with myself. I wake up in the morning running through that list, a knot of anxiety in my chest.
So, I decided I needed to start focusing on the things I have done, rather than on the things I haven’t done yet. To that end, I’ve started a new list called The Have Done list. Every time I do something that’s not on my to-do list or that’s something I typically do as a matter of course (i.e. brush my teeth, eat a vegetable, cook dinner without burning anything), I write it down. At the end of the day, instead of looking at all the unchecked items on my “To-Do” list, I look at my “Have Done” list and instead of feeling a restless need to do more, I feel accomplished and ready to relax without worrying about everything I still need to do.
Thank you for reading.
How do you keep your brain weasels at bay?