It\u2019s 12:17 a.m. I\u2019m laying in the dark basking in the glow of my laptop, next to my sleeping sons, as I go back and forth between the clock and my to-do list, then back to the clock, then over to my children\u2019s faces.<\/p>\n
At this moment I imagine I feel similar to many other entrepreneurs, small business owners, and work from home parents. The day is done, it\u2019s after midnight, but you\u2019ve barely made a dent on all the things that need to get done.<\/p>\n
In the morning the day seems wide open, the world your oyster, and the list of obligations not quite intimidating, yet. It all seems manageable, in the morning. But all it takes is a hiccup to consume a couple of unexpected hours of your morning to throw off your entire day. A technology failure, an unhappy customer, an unexpected task, all of these can wreck a well-made plan. And even without these mishaps, regular distraction, email, a headache, or simply, writer\u2019s block can disrupt one\u2019s business processes as a whole.<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the solution? I\u2019m already working 100 hours a week, maybe another 10 or 15 will make it all fall into place? No, instead it\u2019s the opposite. Know when to turn it off . Enough is\u2026quite literally… enough.<\/p>\n
When I read Melissa Camara Wilkins\u2019 article about having an \u201cenough list,\u201d<\/a> I dropped my laptop, slow clapped for about five minutes, then found a lighter and swayed back and forth until I realized I had a deadline I needed to meet. Wilkins talks about how she makes a short list \u2013 of three things exactly \u2013 that will be the focus of her day<\/a>.<\/p>\n They are not specific tasks, she states, but may be as general as \u201cmake that phone call I\u2019ve been avoiding\u201d or \u201cwrite an article\u201d or \u201csend that email\u201d, but she only makes three, simple, goals a day.<\/p>\n Wow. What a fantastic idea. I began to plan my day around this philosophy and then I woke up. Because, let\u2019s be honest, I\u2019ve got some serious stuff to get done. This idea sounds great on the surface but come on.<\/p>\n Who can seriously only focus on the examples provided in the article? Especially for someone running a small business or acting in a leadership position, the number of phone calls or emails that need follow ups, issues that need resolution, meetings that need your attention, and articles that need to be written are ongoing.<\/p>\n That being said, the takeaway from the article is good \u2013 know when to turn it off. Since for me (like many of you) my to-do list never gets completed, instead it gets whittled down to \u201cnearly manageable\u201d but often escalates to \u201call hell breaking loose,\u201d I was looking for a solution to keep my days as stress free as possible.<\/p>\n So I used Wilkins\u2019 idea as inspiration and I started my \u201cenough list\u201d.<\/p>\n I realized there was no getting away from my to-do list because, honestly, I need it to stay sane and know what expectations and deadlines are the most pressing. But now I also have an \u201cenough list\u201d that allows me to turn it off for the day.<\/p>\n This list designates when it\u2019s ok for me to shut the lid of my laptop and put away my phone. Different from Wilkins, though, instead of putting tasks on my enough list, I put milestones.<\/p>\n I make goals for each day. My to-do list may be a mile long but for Thursday, I\u2019m going to be satisfied with attending my two morning meetings, writing three articles, and responding to four key emails that I put off the day before. And at 6:30 I\u2019ll turn off my laptop, put away my phone, have dinner with my family, talk to my children when they are in the tub, enjoy an episode of Breaking Bad with my husband after the kids go to sleep\u2026and if I feel like it, because who am I kidding, check my email after that.<\/p>\n An enough list isn\u2019t about putting a cap on your day; it\u2019s more about prioritizing your time to make sure your to-do list doesn\u2019t eat you alive. At least not today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (OPINION \/ EDITORIAL) Struggling to keep up with your to do list? Having an ‘enough list’ might be the answer to help focus your productivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337616,"featured_media":6199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[433,1234,750],"class_list":["post-7360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","tag-productivity","tag-real-estate-news","tag-to-do-list"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/home-house-interior.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337616"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7360"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18342,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360\/revisions\/18342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}