One of my cute young adult clients is moving away to college this week. Faced with full-on adulting now, she has to take on more errands, phone calls, emails... more purchasing, earning, cleaning, and problem-solving than ever before. She said she is feeling super anxious -- as in totally frozen and unable to do anything when she stares at her to-do list.
I'm not evil, so I didn't say, "Welcome to hell, glad you could join the rest of us adults." No, I didn't say that because I actually care. Being empathic, I still remember how adulthood came as a full smack in my face when it happened thirty years ago.
I still haven't recovered from the shock of being an adult, even though I'm older now. But I have found a few things to get my booty moving when I really don't want to. So I'll share here what I shared with my client.
My Favorite Tips
My top suggestions here are things I have used... a LOT. I still use them every day to one degree or another. I did not use AI to get this list. I did not read someone else's blog post to come up with these ideas. I straight up am just telling you (like I told her) what I do to get things done.
Play Games - Recognize that you are playing a game with yourself to convince yourself to get productive. Lots of people don't feel like doing chores. That's normal. Feel free to get inventive.
15-minute timer - Call it POMODORO if you'd like. I don't care. But grab a timer and tell yourself you'll work as hard as you can for 15 minutes with no distractions. You'll get some momentum and then probably feel like doing more.
List in a Hat - Seriously. Put your tasks on little scraps of paper and put them in a hat/jar/old trash can... close your eyes and grab one. Then do it. If kids are around, have them choose the paper and it'll kinda be fun.
Pep Talk Yourself - How you talk to yourself matters. Notice that you are saying "this sucks," "I hate this," or "This isn't fair." Tell yourself out loud: "STOP! I can do this. It's worth it. I'll feel great tonight if I get some progress" etc.
Category Sort - This one is my favorite. I sort a huge list of 30+ different things into categories such as housework, computer tasks, purchasing, errands, texting, and so on. Then I do one category at a time. My 30 things now feel like 5 things because each category is its own thing. I use this every single day.
Hardest or Easiest - Depending on your mood, choose the hardest, nastiest task to get out of the way, or choose the simplest you-could-do-this-while-you-are-brain-dead thing and then knock it out. For whatever reason, taking the slow ramp-up of doing the easy thing first is my favorite. Ironically, most self-help books tell you to do the hardest thing first, but it's just up to you. Either way, you are getting something done.
