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Do you ever feel like all you have a million things on your “to do” list? Do you spend your entire day shifting from one thing to the next, only to sit down at the end of the day and feel like you accomplished nothing? Maybe you feel like you did a bunch of things, but they were just not the “right” things? Something feels off. You don’t feel satisfied. I don’t know about you but I want to feel satisfied after a long days work!
If this sounds like you, trust me you are not alone! This was once me, and still sometimes is, but those days are few and far between! Today I wanted to share what changed for me, and how I overcame these feelings.
A while back I heard a saying that has stuck with me and completely changed my mindset, and when I heard it it was like someone flipped a switch and suddenly it all made sense!
Here is what is was…. “If you have more than three priorities, you have don’t have any”
To some of you this might be old news, but to me, this was exactly what I needed to hear! So often I would find myself spinning my wheels all day long, saying “yes” to all sorts of things, but yet at the end of the day I still felt like I had accomplished nothing! The problem was, that I had no real priorities! I would wake up every day with no real direction. I did not know how to say “no” to most things, so that I could say “yes” to the right things! When you make everything a priority, you have no true priorities. When we do not know what our priorities are, we have no vision. When you have no vision, you have no idea where you are going and how you want to get there. Therefore at the end of a long day you will feel nothing but emptiness, regret, and wasted time!
Once I established my three priorities, it was pretty easy for me to filter out what did not fit. This list is going to look different for everyone and there is no right or wrong answer, you just need to choose what fills you up. What are your goals? Center your priorities around those things! For me my top three priorities are…
1. SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH FAMILY
With all the craziness that life brings this can be a hard one sometimes. One of my favorite sayings is “the days are long but the years are short.” Our time with our kids and our family is so important and so necessary, that I put it at the top of my list!
2. HOMESCHOOLING MY KIDS
Obviously this is not going to be on most peoples list, but this is something our family has chosen for this season of life. Being a homeschool mom can be stressful at times. The weight of my kids education sits solely on my shoulders. When I do not have my priorities straight, my mom guilt is really quick to jump in and take over! Who likes mom guilt? Not me!
3. KEEPING UP WITH HOUSEHOLD DUTIES
I have a confession to make; I am a not so nice and slighty grumpy person when my house is a disaster. I wish I wasn’t like this. It’s something I have come to accept but also something I work hard at controlling. When I say household duties, that pretty much includes everything from cleaning, laundry, bills, grocery shopping, and making meals. It’s A LOT and its almost never all caught up at the same time. I do however make an honest effort to keep it all as caught up as possible for everyone’s sanity!
So here is the thing, once I listed out my top three priorities it became clear to me how much time these things truly take. When you weigh it all out, you quickly realize there is not a whole lot of time for anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I still participate in events that do not fit in these categories, but for the most part I now have a clear vision of what is important, what fills my cup, and what makes me feel successful at the end of a long day!
Now its up to you to decide. What are your three priorities?
Wow! That is an incredible little nugget of advice! I have actually never heard this before and it really makes me think. For me, homeschooling will obviously be a priority, but I have so many other things that I can definitely see why some days I feel unproductive. Thank you for sharing this!!