April 25, 2010: Overworked, overwhelmed, and overdoing it.

There are really two kinds of people in the world, those who handle stressful situations with all the grace they can muster and those who lack any kind of grace at all. When you're forced to decide how important things are and overwhelmed by a list that is always growing, it's important to know your limitations and boundaries. I can't count on my fingers (or even my toes) how many times I've gone overboard with to-do lists. I'm the kind of person that lists every single step of the way, so that something as simple as "cleaning the desk" becomes a seventy step job. As my list grows and things start to take longer and longer because I'm finding more detailed steps to add, I get overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of the list and at a certain point I cease functioning in a rational and productive manner.

I love t0-do lists, probably more than the average person does. My lists look like they contain every single motion or action that one specific broad statement like "clean the bedroom" could be encompassed by. The longer the list gets the more fanatical I am about adding things and the less time I spend actually doing any real work. As the afternoon progresses, I find that I'm going to at some point just give up and start ignoring larger things and do the bare minimum.

It isn't a problem to do something thoroughly and in a manner you can be proud of, but it's a problem to start acting as OCD compulsive as the TV character Adrian Monk. You shouldn't have to bleach every section of your house minute spot by minute spot until you're one hundred percent sure that you've covered every single place. When you become so overly detailed, even the smallest jobs turn into Mt. Everest like adventures, where success and completion are things that few people in the world can obtain.

To really find success, it's important to pace yourself and force yourself to understand the merits of a job well done and not overly done. The difference seems like it's just in the details and that a job overly done is still a job well done. Well, when it's something that you're expecting to do repetitively, why would you want to burn yourself out and never want to do them again? That's not fair to yourself, to take away your enjoyment in something because you're failing to exercise self-control. When you enjoy the work you're putting yourself through, you can't seem to get enough of it. But a lot like a much loved sweater or blanket as a child, suddenly those things aren't so wonderful when you become in an adult. Granted that's much to do with emotional, mental, and physical growth as well as the inevitable wear and tear, the end result is still the same.

Not only do you stop enjoying the things you're doing, it's bad for you in other ways as well. Most people develop a poor habit to encourage them to continue on with a behavior they no longer enjoy. When I'm feeling burnt out on writing or any of the other things I do, I start to chain smoke. There go my lungs, as well as the passion and the intensity of really loving and enjoying what I'm doing. That and you can tell, the work you're doing might become sloppy, eventually, unacceptable.

The big deal here is that practice makes permanent, so make yourself practice pacing yourself so that you will always enjoy the things you do. Take the time to do them well, but not overly so. Moderate yourself, you'll be happier, you'll do better, and progress is always directly correlated with morale. So concentrate on helping yourself maintain high morale, it's in your best interest.

Love, Polly.