One of the things that’s been interesting about doing all the productivity planning has been taking apart everything that has brought me to this place.

Last night, I was thinking about my migraines, and finally realized that I was having regular migraines until the end of October 2017. So I’ve really only been mostly migraine free for a little more than a year.

I moved out here to the property in February 2018, which was another huge change. Then, in May, I started going downhill due to the perimenopause, which then exploded in August.

So no wonder what systems I had weren’t really working. I’d never seriously adjusted from all of that.

When I first started doing the productivity planning this last week, I scoffed at the idea of doing weekly planning. My days are too random to look at a week. And in some ways, that is true. Every day this week I’ve had to adjust what I planned to do based on either email I receive or health.

However, those adjustments are minor. I just leave space open for either additional items to be added, or to not add anything more, like today.

And the weekly planning has actually had an unexpected bonus. Instead of trying to fit more things into this week I’m writing them down as things that need to be done next week.

I had adopted one huge To Do list while I had migraines. That list was monthly. I had too many bad days. If I had a huge list, I could pick off what I could do for a day, when I felt up for it. When I couldn’t do anything, that was okay, I had the rest of the month.

That’s not really working anymore – it hasn’t necessarily worked well for a long while, if ever. But it got me through some really rough times.

Being able to write things down for tomorrow or the next day has taken my stress levels down a notch. I know I’ll get to these things. They don’t have to be on my plate today.

Yesterday I actually felt incredibly productive. I did the things on my list. I did the most important things. I even had time last night and was able to add one more thing. Of course it took me twice as long as I’d anticipated, but I did it.

In one of the groups I’m a member of, they asked what do you need to drop, right here, right now? What is holding you back? What do you need to do in order to let go of it?

For me, I’m working on that “glass half empty” approach to life. There are always going to be more things for me to do, more items on that to do list. I get to celebrate what I have done, though. I get to enjoy what I’ve done today. I can feel satisfied with what I’ve finished, knowing that I did accomplish something.

It’s a huge shift for me, much bigger than I’d realized. But I’m going to work on it, every day. See if I can drop the half empty glass in 2018.

So I’ll turn the question around and ask you: what do you need to leave behind in 2018? Take your most cringe-worthy item, something that you never want to think about ever again, and drop it right here, right now, on the ground by your feet. Walk away from it and don’t let it bother you again.

So what will you drop?

Thanks to Carolyn Dean for the question – http://carolyndeanbooks.com/