Time to Make a List of Problems

Today I want to share a simple little trick I came up with that will help you deal with stress and enable you to focus on what matters.

Now, I want to preface this by saying that the past winter wasn’t the easiest for me. There were some very good days for sure, but most of what I remember from it is the endless daily grind, the darkness, the cold, and the problems that seemed to pop up like mushrooms after rain.

It’s not that anything terrible happened, but there were house-related problems, everyone at the office seemed to be sick all the time, and don’t even get me started on my lack of time to write anything more than the bare minimum. The weather was abysmal, I barely had time to do laundry or get my roots done, I had an awful blister, and all this was topped off with sleep deprivation and then a nice little bout of middle-of-the-night insomnia.

Probably the worst source of stress was dealing with the humidity. I was constantly worried about getting mold, and trying to balance ventilation with heating when you have very little time before and after work is a problem in itself.

I’m sure you know what it’s like when life throws one problem after another at you. You have a couple of big problems that you think about all the time, a few that pop into your mind every now and then, and then there’s the gnawing feeling reminding you that there are actually even more problems that you should deal with it, but you just can’t remember all of them right now.

So, how can we alleviate this situation?

Let’s start with a list

As I said, this is a very simple way to deal with the problems in your life. The beauty of it is that it’s an effortless way to lower your stress and stay on track of everything that is currently stressing you out.

What I want you to do is simply write a list of every single problem and worry you have.

It can be in your planner or on your phone. Doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you have all your problems listed somewhere.

When you have the list, you don’t have to worry about possibly forgetting about something important, and that looming feeling of a tidal wave of problems is not coming to take over your life.

Why this helps

You know those moments when you’re suddenly so stressed by it all and it feels like you’re in a pit? If you then look at your list of problems and realize there’s nothing particularly grave there, and you’re actually alright, your stress goes down. You just have a few things to deal with. That’s all.

And once you start to tackle the list and fix one problem after another, it’s nice to see the list shorten to maybe only one or two items that will take longer to figure out.

Simply looking at the list always motivates me to start tackling my problems because many of them are actually pretty small. It could be something like making a dentist appointment that I was supposed to book already two months ago, or sending a short text to someone.

Often our problems look much bigger than they really are, which you already know. So why let them sit in the back of your mind for weeks or months, when you could face them head-on and be done with them?

The faster you tackle your problems, the sooner you will feel at peace

Even fairly meaningless things can cause unnecessary stress without you even noticing. Perhaps you just need to pop by the post office, but since it’s already been almost two weeks, it has now become a Big Problem in your mind.

Not good.

It’s not just that you need to actually take the time to go to the post office, but you’re also losing energy and mental comfort to the lingering feeling that you should do the thing, and since you haven’t done it yet, doesn’t that mean that it’s a big and difficult thing? Your brain likely thinks so now.

Seeing the list of all your current problems helps you understand what you are dealing with right now, and it also helps you realize that most of the things are pretty harmless or you already know how to fix them, you just need to get them done.

If you have been feeling overwhelmed or stressed lately, do try this little trick! And don’t leave even the smallest of problems out. Anything that is stressing or annoying you is a problem that belongs on this list because it affects your life.

And once you have your list, you have your blueprint for the action you need to take.

Want another simple trick that will help you worry less? Here you go.