"I Can't Get to It All, and I'm Falling Behind" When Your System Feels Like One More Thing to Manage [Episode 333]

So one of our community members posted this similar question recently about, "I can't get to it all.

I'm falling behind." And I just knew that we needed to address it here on our podcast, and I wanna share exactly her words.

She said, "I'm struggling with feeling behind every day.

I want to get to the landing spots, the capture tool, the weekly review, the dinner plans, the context-based next actions lists, the projects, the routines, et cetera." Now, as an aside, she's mentioning different parts of our steps to everyday productivity system, and these are a lot of things that she's learning.

These are tools that are going to help her.

Okay, back to her.

[chuckles] "But I know it's too much for each day.

It's stuff I want to do every day, so I can feel on top of it, but I can't do it all in the time I have.

And when I don't, I feel like things are falling through the cracks because my system needs me to do all the things every day.

It's a cycle of renewed motivation or a new plan to get to what matters and being exhausted and defeated after two to three days of it.

I know I need to cut stuff out of my life, but there really isn't much I can cut right now.

It's all so purposeful and intentional and important to me or my family.

Am I doing this wrong? Why do I feel like the day is stuffed full with routines and no room for real life, or helping on the spot or just needing an easier day? There's no room in my mind for that." Okay, [exhales] so [chuckles] I'm gonna take a deep breath too 'cause that was a lot.

I can absolutely empathize with the pain here.

You know you need a system to keep everything running, but then working the system takes time you feel like you don't have.

Or even if you do have your system in place, sometimes new responsibilities or life changes can get us off balance.

I have definitely been there, even just recently.

I get it.

So how do we get out of that cycle? In this specific situation, we, the coaches and community inside of our Step Mastery community, we dug a little deeper, and we found out a few more important details.

This particular woman is dealing with routine-heavy seasons that are aligned with recurring project seasons, so things like birthdays, holidays, gardening, et cetera, and this leaves no room for personal projects that she actually wants to do.

She also has children at home, so her attention is going to them and not towards the activities that typically leave her feeling productive.

Her context-based next actions list, this is our weekly list organized by where we are when we're doing the task, that keeps growing with unexpected additions, making it feel perpetually unrealistic.

Her daily routine is so packed that she dreads waking up because it all just starts over again.

And she has been going through our step program, but she was approaching it as a way to fit more in and not as a way to simplify.

So today, I'm going to share a variety of ideas and principles that we've been discussing in our members area, and I hope that these ideas will be helpful to you as well.