You may feel you have too much to do today–too many things you’d like to, or feel you need to, do. You may have a project looming that’s so big you feel overwhelmed by just thinking about the work it will entail.
The danger of feeling overwhelmed, though, is it can keep you from getting started. You end up avoiding areas or projects because of all the work they require. But instead of focusing on all the things you’ll need to do someday, what if you focused your attention on the very next thing you can actually do today?
Whether you have two things to do, or two hundred, you can only do one thing at a time. So there’s no point in allowing all the things you won’t be doing to keep you from the one thing you can be doing. Identifying do-able next steps makes getting started easier. And getting started is the most fundamental requirement for finishing anything.
When you feel overwhelmed by all that needs to be done, the good news is there should be no shortage of options for what you could be working on next. Even if you don’t have the time or energy to tackle anything big, there’s bound to be something small you can do to keep things moving forward. Progress may feel slow at times–but at least you’ll be making progress.