What to do when you have too much to do
Pick one task by a rule rather than by how you feel, make its first step small enough to start in a minute, and write everything else down so it can wait. The feeling of too much is usually the cost of holding every task in your head at once, not of doing them.
Choose by a rule, not by feel
Deciding what to do first is work of its own, and with a long list it can take the whole day. A rule removes the decision: the thing with the nearest hard deadline first, then the thing somebody else is waiting on, then whatever is smallest.
Make the first step small
"Write the essay" is a project; "open the document and write the title" is a step. The smaller the first step, the less there is to push against, and once something is moving the next step is easier to take.
Let the rest wait somewhere you trust
A task you are afraid of forgetting keeps asking for attention. Written down with a day on it, it can be left alone until that day. The list is not the problem; carrying it is.
Plan the week, not just today
If the work does not fit the days before a deadline, you want to know that now rather than the night before. Count the hours the work needs against the hours you actually have, and decide what gives.
The method, step by step
- Write everything down in one place, without sorting it. Something written down no longer has to be remembered.
- Park anything with no deadline and nobody waiting on it. It is not gone; it is just not today.
- For what is left, note when each thing is due and roughly how long it takes.
- Pick one by a rule: the nearest deadline that still fits, or, when nothing is due soon, the thing somebody is waiting for.
- Make its first step small enough to start within a minute, and start it before you plan anything else.
- When that session ends, pick the next one by the same rule. Do not re-plan the whole list between tasks.
What decision fatigue is, and what the research says
Decision fatigue is the idea that making many choices wears down how well you make the next one. It is a popular explanation for why a long list feels heavier as the day goes on.
The evidence is weaker than the idea is famous. A replication across 23 laboratories found no reliable effect for ego depletion, the older theory it grew from, and meta-analyses of choice overload find that more options hurt only in particular conditions: when the options are hard to compare, when the decision is difficult and when you are unsure what you want. An unsorted list at the end of a long day meets all three.
Hagger et al., 2016. Perspectives on Psychological Science 11(4) · Chernev, Böckenholt & Goodman, 2015. Journal of Consumer Psychology 25(2)
So the practical advice does not depend on how that debate ends. A few live choices, made by a rule and early in the day, are easier than many choices made on feel.
How Sailyn does this for you
You tell Sailyn what is coming in your own words. It plans the days around what is fixed in your week, shows one task at a time with the reason it was picked, and moves the rest when a day does not go as planned. If the work does not fit before a deadline, it says so plainly instead of pretending.
Know what you need to do, but can't get started? Sailyn gives you one next step, a plan that adapts, and no penalty for difficult days.
Sailyn is free while in beta. It is a planning tool, not a treatment, and if too much has become more than you can cope with, talk to someone you trust or a doctor.