5 Reasons Nothing’s Getting Done Even Though You’re Doing All the Things.

You’re Doing All the Things - But It Feels Like You’re Always Behind

So, you’re doing everything on your list, but you feel behind every single day. You end your day lying in bed staring at the ceiling thinking of all you didn’t get done.

Why? Why is it like this?

You may be telling yourself it’s happening because:

You’re not organized enough

You’re bad at managing your time

You just haven’t got your shit together

You are not capable/bad at what you do/a failure

Guess what? All of that is three thousand percent false.

Y'all, we tell ourselves so many things that just aren't true.

The reason you feel so behind has nothing to do with YOU, and everything to do with WHAT you’re spending your time doing.

 
 

The Reason This Is Happening

So why is this happening?

It’s happening because you’re doing something all the time, and it may even be important, but is it important to YOU?

I know!

And I immediately hear you saying, but Alison, not everything I do can be important to me! Sometimes I have to go do stuff I don’t want to do!

To which I say - pay attention to your language, friend. You may not WANT to do it, but you ARE doing it, because there is something about it that is important to you or to someone that is important to you. Therefore, you go do it.

So how do you fall into a trap of doing things that aren’t important to you, and therefore feel forever and always like “things just aren’t getting done?”

Here Are 5 Ways You May Be Trapping Yourself In This Cycle

  1. You're telling yourself what is important to you is going to take waaaaay longer than it will actually take.

    Let me tell you what a revelation looks like.

    I had been telling myself for YEARS that there was no way I could get my kitchen cleaned up and all the dishes out of the sink every night.

    I had also been waking up every morning and IMMEDIATELY feeling my anxiety raise when I walked into my kitchen and it was cluttered and dishes were piled in the sink.

    This led to overwhelm, which led to paralysis, which led to the kitchen becoming more cluttered and more dishes being left in the sink because, if I didn’t have the time to clean the small mess before, I definitely didn’t have time to clean this bigger mess now.

    Enter Vanilla Ice. No, I’m not kidding.

    One night, when I had a smaller mess and was listening to music, myself and my brain decided tonight was the night I was going to do a pass through the kitchen and try to clean out the sink before bed.

    I did it. Well. And it took as much time as listening to Ice Ice Baby once. For reference, that’s 4:32. Less than 5 minutes. A REVELATION, FRIEND.

    BOOM. Done. If you’re telling yourself that you do not have the time to do something that you KNOW would make you happier/healthier/less anxious, and thus you look at it every day and think, “if only...”, try doing it WITH A TIMER. You might be completely amazed. I was.

  2. You're telling yourself that you alone on this planet are the only human being that can possibly do the thing (or do it right. I know, it's cruel and I'm a meanie, but you also know it's true, love.) that isn’t REALLY a priority for you. Then you’re doing it.

    This is a rough one. A sticky one. One that people don’t really want to get into because they have “their way” of doing things and anything that doesn’t meet that standard is subpar, but they’re also slowly exhausting themselves because they can’t let go of control.

    LIKE I SAID - it’s tough.

    What needs to be understood is that if you don’t do the thing and it ABSOLUTELY must get done, someone else WILL do it.

    If it doesn’t get done, that means it probably didn’t absolutely need to get done in the first place.

    When it comes to “letting” someone else do it - where would you rather your energy go?

    Do you want your energy soaked up in the stress of doing the thing all alone and being resentful about it AND not teaching anyone around you to actually do the thing?

    Or would you rather your energy go to an hour or so of, “that’s not the right way to do that!” angst and MOVE THE HELL ON?

  3. The things you're doing are consistently for someone (or everyone) else's benefit, instead of your own.

    Ok, friends. Listen up, cause this one is important. Yes, we all do things for other people.

    Yes, we do things for other people that we don’t necessarily want to do. If the only things that ever land on your list are for other people though, it’s time to reevaluate.

    YOU have to be on your own list. Somewhere. I would argue at the top, but that’s me.

    If you’re looking around at all the “things you can’t get done,” and they don’t get done because they’re things that are for your benefit, and you’re running around benefiting everyone else, there’s the problem.

    You cannot ignore the things that are important to you and expect to feel fulfilled.

    You can’t spend all your time caring for other people and expect that that will somehow replace self-care.

    It just doesn't work that way.

    Your stuff counts, too, and it needs priority.

  4. You have no idea what you actually WANT to prioritize, so you're launching at your to-do list with no real plan.

    Hmmmmm. Yeah.

    You’ve got approx 6,429 things that COULD be helpful, but you aren’t sure, and another 2,836 that “NEED” to get done, you’re pretty sure, but you have no idea what of these thousands of things you actually WANT to do because they’ll serve you best.

    OOF.

    Thusly, you hop from one possibly-helpful-also-maybe-needs-to-get-done-though-you-have-no-actual-evidence-to-support-either-claim item and “multi-task” yourself into a completely frantic place.

    It doesn’t have to be this hard, friend.

    What NEEDS to get done?

    What ACTUALLY needs to get done?

    What actually needs to be done by YOU?

    Ok. Now that we’ve cut your list by about 3/4 - what’s going to serve you and your people BEST? Of those things, what would serve everyone best, the MOST, right NOW? Do that first.

  5. You simply cannot or will not say, "No."

    I know. I know. Between No. 2 and No. 5 we really have some shots fired, here.

    HOWEVER, you need to say no more often.

    You need to say no period.

    A lot of “No.” needs to be said.

    It doesn’t need to be said followed by a million reasons WHY you’re saying no.

    It doesn’t need to be said followed by a little white lie like, “but I so wish I could.”

    It just needs to be said.

    So much energy is wasted on agonizing over doing things that you either 1) don’t want to do or 2) feel obligated to do or 3) just don’t have the time for because saying no has become this horrible, terrible thing in our society of “selflessness.”

    Nope. Wrong. Incorrect.

    Self-care isn’t selfish, and neither is saying no.

 
 

Get Things Done - By Making Sure They’re the Right Things!

I know this all might sound like some sort of magic and unicorn snot, but PLEASE TRUST ME WHEN I TELL YOU that when you start prioritizing what is truly important to you and your people, you will feel way more productive.

Doing less will actually make you feel more productive because not only will you be doing what is important to you, but because you’ll be doing it WELL, and probably even completing each task.

IMAGINE.

The older I get the more I realize that the answer to a lot of questions around getting more done, feeling more organized, happier, and more content are answered with “just do less.”

You can’t do all the things well all the time. You can do some things well most of the time, and those “some things” will feel the best when they’re the right things.

Needing help figuring out how much less to do? Help is on the way! Later this week I’ll start talking about a new service launching this month, the Self-Care Curator Intensive. It’s a 90-day plan that I create with and for you to help you prioritize self-care. If you’d like to know the MOMENT spots open - sign up here for Early Bird access!