Thinking In Pieces

Sometimes (ok, often) I'll look at my email box(es), see all the emails needing to be answered and then I'll sigh, get up from my chair and go wash the dishes. Or read a book.

Basically, I just run away.

We all have different reactions to feeling overwhelmed--most commonly I procrastinate so long that I start believing I actually finished what needed to be done. Which means, of course, that later I'll find myself even more overwhelmed and farther behind-- and apologizing a lot.

How much better to think baby steps,small bites. 

To view tasks in pieces, rather than allowing the whole huge project/chore to spiral me into a zombie state. Too often that "all or nothing" mentality or believing there's only one certain way to do anything has messed me up, bigtime.

Yet, slowly, I'm learning. Whenever I paint a room, I think only one wall at a time. I can handle one wall. And often after I've painted that wall I feel ready to paint one more. It's when I pressure myself to paint the whole darn room in one day that I get into trouble and procrastinate even buying the paint. Then find two years have vanished since I first considered painting in the first place. 

(You think I'm kidding?)

Pieces of the pie--I need to see more of what needs to be done as pieces of a pie. I can handle one piece at a time--

one email, 
one wall painted, 
one flower bed prepared. Planted,
one letter,
one Facebook post,
one comment answered, 
one load of laundry.

No sweat.


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Of course, we don't have this option on every single task in Life, but it's amazing how often we do. Trust me--I've noticed.


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