#132| It’s Not the Tasks - How Your Thoughts About Your To-Do List Are Killing Your Productivity and What Do About It: Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing

Is your to-do list slowly crushing your spirit, no matter how hard you work to conquer it?

 If you've ever felt paralyzed by a never-ending list of responsibilities—juggling work, home life, and everything in between—you're not alone. In this episode, you'll hear the real-life story of Jenny, a business owner and mom of four, whose overwhelming to-do list created a daily cycle of burnout, anxiety, and frustration. But more importantly, you'll discover what helped her break free—and how you can too.

In this episode, you will:

• Learn how to identify and escape the "doom cycle" that keeps you stuck in unproductive stress loops.
• Discover a mindset shift that instantly reduces the pressure to “do it all.”
• Walk away with a simple method to prioritize your tasks realistically and feel good about your progress.

 Press play now to learn the one shift that transformed Jenny’s chaotic days into calmer, more productive ones—so you can start doing less and accomplishing more.

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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.

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Chapters

• 3:41 The Doom Cycle
• 5:50 Notice Your Thoughts
• 7:09 Changing Your Thoughts

Transcript

Michelle Gauthier: 0:04

Your to-do list isn't actually the problem, even if it feels like it is. You're listening to Overwhelmed Working woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the Gothier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.

Michelle Gauthier: 0:40

Hi, friend, I have a great episode for you today, but before I jump into that, I want to tell you two things. Number one is April is the second birthday of the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. I am so delighted that this is the case. We are currently in the top 2% of podcasts of the 3.5 million podcasts all over the world, and that makes me so happy. We've got 130 something episodes and I really want to take some time in April to celebrate, and I'm asking you to participate with me in that. I would love for you to send me a voice memo, and I've got a web page set up for you to do just this, and what I want to know from you is, say hi in your name and where you're from. And then, what has been your favorite part of the podcast? Is there an episode? Is there a certain takeaway? How has the podcast impacted your life? And then I want you to ask me anything. Ask me any question. It can be personal, it can be about coaching, it can be about the podcast, it can be about my dog who's barking right now as I'm trying to record this. Whatever you want it to be, it just should be between 30 and 60 seconds, and then I'm going to feature those on the podcast and answer your questions. It really would make me feel connected to the community and, I think, make the listeners feel connected to one another. So if you are up for doing that, I would absolutely love it. There is a link in the show notes that says send me a voice note for the anniversary, and I would love for you to do that. Okay, so let's jump into today's episode.

Michelle Gauthier: 2:12

Today I'm going to tell you a story my real life client, Jenny, who was drowning in to-dos and her to-do list was killing her. It was killing her productivity, it was killing her spirit, it was just making her feel absolutely miserable. And when we investigated why that was happening and found what the solution was to that. I asked her if I could share the story on the podcast, because it's just so relatable. I hear things like this. It's not the exact same story as hers, but I hear this same kind of story all the time. So let me introduce you to Jenny and her situation.

Michelle Gauthier: 2:48

So Jenny owns a company. She has lots of employees at that company. She herself does the majority of the leadership and administrative work, plus lots of other tasks that she just picks up along the way, because sometimes, as an owner, that's just the kind of thing that you do. She's also a mom of four kids. She has a husband and she has three dogs. So you can imagine, just based on those facts alone, that Jenny has a pretty big to-do list, and when she started coaching with me, the first thing that we worked on was her to-do list. When I said what is the most stressful thing in your life right now, she said my to-do list. I'm just not getting anything done. So I dug into understanding this with her, because the way that I approach it in coaching is we talk through exactly what is happening, and so we got real in depth about what was going on with her to-do list. So here's what I found out.

Michelle Gauthier: 3:41

So every morning Jenny would wake up and before she was even fully awake, she would feel this pressure before she even got out of bed. And then she would look at her to-do list and think I have to do everything on this list today, the way that we feel. So she had the thought I have to do everything on my list today, and it created a feeling of panic and inadequacy and this feeling of being trapped. Can anybody relate to that? Raise your hand if you can. Absolutely Amen to that. So instead of making progress, then, when she's feeling panicked and trapped, what Jenny was doing instead were a couple things and see if any of these resonate with you as well. She would either do nothing, meaning freeze, grab her dog and a blanket and watch some TV and try to distract herself and almost hide under the blanket just to avoid life, or she would go into this panic of working and trying to do things so quickly and snapping at people who interrupted her and really not getting anything done because she was in I'm picturing like a tornado. That's how I feel when I get in that frantic work mode. So by the end of the day, instead of feeling accomplished for what she did get done, she felt awful. She was exhausted, she felt like she was still behind and that was leading to more things on her to-do list to carry over to the next day, plus headaches and stress and other physical symptoms.

Michelle Gauthier: 5:16

As we looked into this process because the first thing we do is look at what's happening without judgment A lot of times our brain gets into patterns and they are unconscious. So Jenny did not know. She couldn't have articulated all of this until we sat down and talked about it. So when I asked her about it, I said what should we call this process? And she said the doom cycle. This is the doom cycle that happens to me every day Wake up exhausted, panic about the to-do list, either frantically try to get things done or get nothing done, and then feel like crap about it at the end of the day, and that's just the cycle that she was in.

Michelle Gauthier: 5:50

So the homework she had as a result of that session was to change nothing that she was doing and only to work on noticing. When she was in the doom cycle, I said just notice when you're in it, notice when you're having that thought and just start keeping a tally of how much this is happening. Because, as funny as it sounds, we have these beliefs, these thoughts that we're having, like the thought she was having of I have to get everything done today, and when we have those kinds of thoughts, they're often unconscious. So I wanted her to bring that thought to consciousness and to have awareness of the doom cycle and see what was going on with it, without judgment. All we're doing is looking at this and observing what's going on with your brain and your body. When she came back to me the next week, what she discovered and in fact she even texted me in between our sessions to say, oh my gosh, I'm in the doom cycle all the time. This is happening to me literally all the time, all day long. I'm just starting the cycle over and over and over again, and so that is so helpful to be able to see. No wonder you're feeling so yucky and you're feeling so trapped. It's because, behind the scenes, your brain is constantly saying you've got to get this all done. You've got to get it all done. You've got to get it all done today.

Michelle Gauthier: 7:09

So the next step we took was to work on Jenny substituting in a new thought, and the new thought that she decided on is I'm not going to do it all, and that's okay, I'll do some, or I do good work every day. Those were her new thoughts that she came up with so, as she was able to catch herself in the doom cycle and then substitute in a thought like I'm not going to do it all, and that's okay, I will do some, I'll do good work every day, what happened is she felt much more relaxed in her approach to her to-do list. The other thing we did was some basic math. We estimated how many hours a day she was awake. Then we looked at her typical day how many hours are you driving your kids around? How many hours do you have appointments? How many hours are you at work? How many hours are you spending eating, showering, walking your dogs, hanging out with your family, and then, at the end of that, what is left for you to get this, these things done that you need to do?

Michelle Gauthier: 8:05

And so what we found out is that it literally wasn't humanly possible to do everything in the day. So all day long she's telling herself I have to do everything and just mathematically speaking, she was feeling like oh, let's say she's awake 18 hours a day. Okay, I'm awake 18 hours a day, surely I can get all this stuff done. But when we figured in all of her time, that was already committed. She had like two hours to spend and so that's fine. You just means you need to plan that you can work on two hours worth of stuff, not 100 or 18 hours worth of stuff.

Michelle Gauthier: 8:39

So as she subbed in those new thoughts of I'm not going to do it all and that's okay, I'll do some. I'll do good work every day, it created a much more relaxing feeling in her body and then she was able to start a new process where she just looks at her top three things and she's able to work on those top three things. So it's interesting because before, when she was in the doom cycle, all the time she had this giant to-do list and she felt like she was getting nothing done. And now she feels relaxed and she's working on those top three things. Even if she doesn't get all three of them done, she can see that she's made progress and she can try again the next day. So the moral of this story is it's the problem is not your to-do list.

Michelle Gauthier: 9:23

Jenny's to-do list was far too long for considering the actual hours she had and the expectations she had of herself, but it was really the way that she was thinking about her to-do list and putting pressure on herself that was causing her to not be able to get anything done. Thank you, jenny, for being willing to share your story, because I feel like this is super relatable to anybody who is listening to this podcast. Next thing that Jenny and I are gonna be working on and maybe I'll do a continuation episode, if this is something that you guys like hearing about is we're looking at everything that she does have on her to-do list and figuring out which ones can be outsourced, which ones absolutely have to be her, and how she can start delegating that. So that's really going to be our next step.

Michelle Gauthier: 10:07

Thank you so much for listening today and thanks to Jenny for allowing me to share her story on the podcast. To help all of you, don't forget to send me a voice note and tell me your favorite part of the podcast and ask me whatever questions that you have. I'm really grateful that you're a listener and, as I'm taking the time each week to think about topics to talk to you about, I have all of you in mind, and I'm thinking about this whole community, and I am so grateful for you. Have a great week. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthiercom. See you next week.