One Thing At A Time

When I worked as editor at a major publication, one of the more common phrases we’d hear from our art team when mulling over a design was ‘let it breathe.’ That meant that there were too many design elements on one page or one set of pages. It meant that we needed to dial back the amount of words or art or some such and let the main thing be the main thing. That whatever it is we were trying to convey on that page was enough on its own. ⁣
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Years later, that phrase still plays in the back of my mind. I’m the type of person who will have a month’s worth of items on a one day to do list. And at the end of that day, I look at my list feeling defeated because I was only able to get 1/4 of it done. ⁣
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My husband recently reminded me of this. After a conversation with him, during which he told me it was my own unnecessary, self-imposed deadlines that were driving me up a wall, I went to my list of to-dos and pared it down. Excitedly, I approached him and said, ‘I cut back on so much. Now, I just have to tackle all the rest of these things and I’ll be good.’ Before I could even finish my statement he cut me off and said, ‘No you’ll tackle one thing at a time and you’ll be good.’ ⁣
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Mind. Blown. ⁣
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One thing at a time? That’s an idea I hadn’t even considered, much less practiced. What he was really saying was for me to make the main thing the main thing. That whatever I was working on or toward was enough weight on its own. I needed to let it breathe. I needed to let myself breathe. ⁣
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And so these questions are ones I had to consider. They helped me prioritize my life and then put people and systems in place to support me both mentally and physically. So, take a moment to answer them. Make your list NOW (and reassess it frequently)!