The Never Ending To Do List

In this week’s episode of The Quiet Reset, I’m talking about something I think so many of us struggle with: the feeling that there is always something else to do.

From the never ending housework and mental load of motherhood to perfectionism, productivity and the pressure to keep all the plates spinning, I’m sharing some thoughts that have been on my mind this week after a much-needed coffee with a virtual assistant.

We’ll chat about why perfection is often a moving target, the difference between the glass balls and the rubber balls in life, and a simple brain-dump exercise that has helped me clear my mind and feel less overwhelmed over the years.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly chasing your tail, waiting for the moment when everything is finally done so you can relax, this episode is for you.

Grab a cuppa, take a breath, and join me for a quiet reset.

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The Quiet Reset is created by The Secret Mum Club.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Professional organising company built on understanding, judgment, free support, and real help. I'm that extra pair of hands you've always wished you had. And this podcast is here to help your life feel lighter, calmer, and more manageable. One honest conversation at a time. Hello and welcome back to the quiet reset by the Secret Mum Club. I'm your host, Kerry, and I'll be keeping you company today. Welcome to June, everybody. The sunshine has disappeared today and it is raining and wet, and I went on school run in white jeans, curly hair, and a suede jacket. I need to learn to read the weather before I go out, what a silly idea. Anyway, let's get on with today's episode. I want to start by telling you a little story. So today I met up with a virtual assistant for a coffee, and I'd reached the point where I was constantly chasing my towel. I have just not only the endless things that you have at home, like the house, the washing, the cooking, the school bits, the admin, the newsletters, you know, I've then got my job. And when you run your own business, it doesn't stop. That mental load doesn't go anywhere, it's continuous, it's the same loop that goes round and round. And I got to the point last week where I was at the Rising Tide Collective, which is a women's business group that I go to, and I was speaking to the lady who runs it, and she said to me, I said, Well, at what point did you get to that you got a virtual assistant? And she said, When things got too much and I wasn't concentrating on the bit of the business that I loved that I wanted to spend more time on, and I thought, I'm at that point, I'm at that point, I need a virtual assistant. So I sent a little call out and I got a lovely lady called Nikki. So we went out for a coffee this morning, and she asked me, Where is it you're trying to go? What do you want? How are you trying to get there? And I might have reeled off 500 things that are on my brain that didn't actually quite answer her question. And I think that's because there's too many things on my mind. And when there's too many things, your brain is chaos and it's not focusing on absolutely anything. And I realised in that moment that I don't actually think I'm behind. I think I'm trying to finish something that can never be finished, and that got me thinking about perfection and happiness and why so many of us feel exhausted all the time. Let's face it, there's always something to do. You know, there's the dishes, the dishwasher, the counters need wiping, the floor needs cleaning, the washing needs been put away. There's literally always something waiting for us, and that list never ends. And the problem is that many of us believe that when we finish the list, we'll finally relax. But it doesn't finish, does it? Homes are not finished. One of my friends was saying the other day that she was she said, We've just got the bathroom to go and then we've finished. And I spoke to her the following week, and she said, We've had a leak, now that needs doing, and then there was a mouse in the garage and she said, Oh, that needs doing. It just doesn't stop. There's always going to be something, and yet we spend so much of our lives trying to reach a finish line that doesn't truly exist. I've also noticed that we all have a little bit of the pursuit of perfection, and everyone is trying to get everything so perfect, it's not for a picture, it's not for Instagram, it's not for Facebook. It's because we have seen all of this around us, and we think that's how things should be. This week I was creating a voucher for a football raffle, um, something that should have taken me half an hour, and instead, I spent two hours trying to print it on my super duper printer that I've just bought, and it was dragging this bit of paper through, and then it was putting it in the wrong place, and I had a nightmare. It turns out that the paper was the wrong thickness, it was too thick, and so it was like double feeding. Anyway, cut a long story short, I ran down uh the stationery shop, got some more paper the next day, put it through, it was fine. Put it through, printed it out, and I thought to myself, if only I could print this out, then it would be finished. But actually, after getting the paper and printing it out, I looked at it and I thought I'm not happy with it. I need to move this bit left, this bit right, I need to adjust the spacing, I need to make it look perfect. And do you know that? What? Even after I'd done all of that, I still thought that I could change things, and that's the problem with perfection. The closer we get to it, the more flaws we find, and the target just keeps moving. Before I started, I thought it looked beautiful, and then four hours later, I was criticizing it. And what did those extra hours actually cost me? Not money, it cost me time, energy, peace, rest, family time. I could have been doing so many things in that moment, but instead I thought that my time was best spent in this frustrated situation that I was in. Sometimes perfection disguises itself as productivity. We feel busy, we feel like we're working, we feel like we're getting somewhere. Or are we polishing something that nobody else would even notice? Would they have noticed if I hadn't put that extra line spacing in or moved it left a little bit or moved it right a bit? No, they probably wouldn't. That's that's what I put on myself. Now, what about all the things that we're trying to juggle? I want to talk to you about glass balls and rubber balls. I don't know if you've heard this before, it it's been around for years. It's basically saying that imagine all of the responsibilities that you have in your life as balls that we are juggling, right? Some are glass and some are rubber. Now, the glass things are things that we genuinely can't drop. Like our children, our health, paying the bills, school uniforms, important commitments, um keeping ourselves fed, those things really matter. But then there are rubber balls, and these are things that you can keep on juggling. If you drop that ball, it'll just bounce back up and go straight back in, and you can carry on juggling again. And then the things like this drawer does not need organizing for the 15th time. That is something that I need to think about more because this is exactly what I do. Um, that email that can quite frankly wait until tomorrow, or or all that 10 more minutes that you need to spend on social media. The problem is so many of us treat every single ball as if it's made out of glass. Everything feels urgent and everything feels important, and everything feels like it needs to happen right now, but it doesn't. Some things bounce, and today that is exactly what I am doing. I am feeling incredibly overwhelmed by everything that I'm carrying. Trying to remember to plan stuff, notice stuff, play with the children, you know, be there for my family, trying to work endlessly to try and get somewhere, to try and meet people, to try and give people my time, and it is so so draining. The mental tabs that are constantly open are too much, way too much for everybody. And I think that this is a problem that a lot of us have, especially as mums. So today is my working day, and today I have decided to not do. I am not working today. That isn't my business because not because everything's done at all, and not because I suddenly have loads of spare time, but because I've just realized that the will never stops. The emails will be there tomorrow, the jobs will still be there tomorrow, the ideas, the work, and that's alright. Today I need some space more than I need to be productive. I'm gonna focus on all of those things that are just clogging up my mental load. Years ago, I read a book called The Productivity Ninja. It's a brilliant, it's a brilliant, brilliant book. It's not too big and it's taught me a lot. And there was an idea that completely changed the way I think. On the first day of every month, and I haven't done that this month because I've been so busy, and it's so important that I do because I always feel so much better after doing it. I do a complete brain dump. Not a to-do list, but everything that is in my head I write down on a little bit of paper. Right, I've got um little mini post-its, and I write down each thought in my head on these little bits of paper, and when I feel like I've finished, I then walk around my house and see if there's anything else that I need to add, and then I keep going, and then I put it all into order. So I go, these are the things that I need to do when I'm out, these are all the things that are 15-minute jobs or two-minute jobs, like book the dentist, reply to that email, and then there's project work, things that you need to organise, like the garage, for example. And there's also a category that things that I can't do anything about. So, for example, we have got some beautiful decking outside that my husband is 90% done. I can't go out there and finish it. I probably could. I'd make a bloody mess of it, I probably could, but I can't do it, so I am leaving that to him to do. But there's nothing I can do about it. That so in keeping instead of that thought going over and over in my mind, once I've written it down and put it in that envelope and sealed that envelope, I know that it's off it's off my brain, and I don't need to do anything with it. And what you do is you do that every month, but at the end of the month, whatever jobs you've got left, you you don't read them, you just screw them all up and you throw them in the bin because your mental load changes. You don't get to the end of that list and then say, I will have nothing to do. There's more things, but instead of continually adding on to those and reminding yourself of things that are no longer important or no need to be done, then you just get rid of them, and it is honestly a game changer. I have been doing this for years, and I can't believe that I'm on the 8th of June already, and I've not done it. So today I am going to clear that mental load, I'm gonna take all of that off of my brain, and what I do today, I manage to do today, and what I don't, I will move on till tomorrow. But in order for me to slow down and for me to enjoy doing the things that I'm doing, this is what I have to do. A really important thing that I think we all need to remember is what if good enough is enough? What if the house is clean enough? We've all done that thing where the cleaner's been round or you've been round and you've cleaned your house, and then you've gone the next day, I could just over that again. Why would you need to? You were just done yesterday. Nothing is that bad, surely. But the work is finished enough. What if the so my social media post is good enough? What if we stopped asking, how can I make this perfect? Start asking, is this enough? Because enough is often where happiness lives. So, what are you trying to finish that can never actually be finished? Are you trying to perfect something that's already good enough? Which of those balls that you are juggling are genuinely glass, and which ones would bounce if you dropped them? Maybe happiness isn't waiting at the end of a completed stew list and it isn't finally in getting everything perfect. Maybe it comes when we accept that the work will never be completely finished, but we allow ourselves to stop anyway. You have done enough today. You are enough today, and the things that matter most are really found at the bottom of the to-do list. Thank you so much for listening today. If you have enjoyed this episode, I'd be really grateful if you hit the subscribe button, share it with a friend, or leave a little review. It really means more to me than anything for more mums to find the quiet reset. You can also come and find me on Instagram and Facebook at the Secret Mum Club where I share organizing inspiration, family recommendations, and simple ideas to make life a little bit easier. Until now, be kind to yourself. You're doing an amazing job. I'll see you next week for another quiet reset. Bye for now.