Have you ever been so stressed out by the tasks you have to do that you don’t know how to deal so you just end up sitting there doing nothing?? Well me too. Anxiety tells us we have to do all these things, right now, perfectly. It causes us to have tunnel vision and we are unable to see the bigger picture.
Here are some tips to help get you out of that state of mind:

For the planner:

1. Look at your schedule for the next week and add the reliable steady events like work or a kid’s practice
2. Next, add in your non-recurring events like a doctor’s appointment or a haircut
3. Find the “free time”. Do you have an open 10 or 30 minutes a few days out of the week?
4. Add items from your to do list to that free time. Realistically evaluate how much time it will take to do that thing. Mail a letter? 10 minutes. Go for a work out at Dissent? 90 minutes. Adding a date and time will make you WAY more likely to do that thing
5. Remind yourself you have time. You have already scheduled out your items for the week, so you don’t need to worry about it right this minute.
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For the “but I should”

1. Ask yourself a couple questions:

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“What will happen if I do/do not do _______?”
“Am I doing this for myself, or someone else?”
“What is my motivation for doing _____?”

1. Be honest with yourself. Are you really doing ______ because you want to or because you “should”?
2. If the answers to your questions end up that you are doing ______ because you are trying to prove someone wrong, prove that you are productive, prove you are doing enough… Maybe look a little deeper before you should all over yourself
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‍For the “I need to get this done so I will be happy”

1. Reflect back over the last year, month, week
2. Were there things you did before right now that you said you would be “happy” once you did that thing?
3. If the answer is yes, why are you not happy then? Happiness is not a state of being. Happiness is an emotion that ebbs and flows like anger, sadness, and excitement
4. Do some things that will help produce the emotion happiness. Don’t do the thing you feel you need to but strictly the thing you simply want to do.
5. Do more of those things

Moral of the story is you have the time to do the things you want to do and spend the time with people you want to spend time with but you may have to give up other things in the process.