learn to prioritize

I hope no one else can empathize with my on this; whenever I know I’m suppose to do something I spend hours finding ways to avoid it, it can be as mundane as painting my nails or just listening to and finding new bands online, whats even worse is that the task I avoid it can be something I like doing. I have many important people in my life that this is or has become a burden over.

So for this goal I want to learn to prioritize and to complete tasks in a time frame that is understandable and acceptable, I already know my list….

My life is so hectic and busy right now, but I make it so much worse by putting the same urgency on every task on my to-do list. My mom told me that her nursing school teachers taught her to prioritize by arranging things into three categories: Things we have to do, things we should do and things we want to do. I’m going to try to organize my life this way and see how it goes.

I’m terrible at triage. I’ve come to realize that I need to learn how to prioritize things, because there isn’t anything in my lifestyle that I want to give up.

Luckily, technology has come to the rescue, at least a little bit.

I saw this goal-setting Web page doo-dad that uses a forced choice to help a person figure out where his or her priorities lie. I hope that I can actually figure out how to do this myself so it sort of becomes second nature.

Things on the list that I have to put in some sort of order at some point.

Obviously, my children are my NUMBER ONE priority & ALWAYS will be.

My job/career is another big one…right now I have a pretty amazing job & a good career path if I keep doing good work for the company.

School needs to become a “Top 5” priority & that needs to happen soon in order to stay with my current job & advance to bigger positions.

Exercise needs to get on the list also. I think it could help me feel better as far as my health goes & to stay mentally & emotionally healthy, too. I want to buy a bike.

Starting a college fund for my children.

Taking care of my car- it is THE ONLY thing I own….and I need to keep it as long as possible.

There are more, but lets start with these few.

Have the discipline to do the important things first, not the fun things!

It’s not so much anymore that I don’t know what I should do first as much as the fact that I am so tired that I choose to sleep or relax first. Then, I become overwhelmed about not finishing the things I’m supposed to do and that makes me want to sleep some more – yet, I don’t get as much sleep as I should. That should be my first clue right there, to sleep enough and see if that will give me the energy to do the things I have to do when I’m awake.

I have a feeling it’s going to take more than that. I’m sure I need to really exercise. It’s so hard to start. Why don’t I just do it? (Cause I’m not Nike, that’s why.) I used to love it, now I think I hate it. I feel too old for how old I really am. I’m too small to feel this heavy. I think I’m 106 pounds, yet I know I’m really out of shape.

Sleep and exercise and water – which I don’t drink either. Maybe that should be my priority, but who will do the laundry, clean the apartment and pay the bills?

Uhhhhh…

I just read my entries and they are all over the place. I complain about the same things. I don’t think I’ve made any progress, so I am now calling this goal “learn to prioritize”. Following through is a completely different thing.

Things that help me with this are:
-letting go of little things – LET GO!!!
-not be such a perfectionist – do them even if they are not well done (such a hard thing to even conceive).

I learned from a book a while back to figure out which ones were my priorities. I’ve gotten better at doing this, but not at following through. I find myself doing a lot of “emergency” fixing still. I don’t know how to fix that. If I take care of one, then the other ones accumulate. I have let go already of many “projects”, but like today, I spent ALL day researching vitamins. I have to stop being a perfectionist. That should be a goal.

I need to have less lists and stop categorizing them. I have so many different ones (work, home, personal, health, financial…) , they all have a priority.

I wish I could learn to prioritize.

I’m still so excited about my success this morning. I know it was only one day and it has to turn into a habit, but even though “not sleeping during the day” is not the most important thing on my list, it can definitely help and facilitate the completion of my other goals. Since my #1 goal was to prioritize, then what better than putting “waking up” at the beginning.

I’ trying to do this. By trying I realize that I’m not good at it and I notice how many times I fall short. Now, because of my “new” problems (they are really old and I’ve created them by procrastinating), I HAVE to get good at this and fast. But things are getting checked out on my list, and I’m trying to focus on the progress, otherwise I can get sick from stress.