This Prepared Life
Welcome to This Prepared Life, a podcast for women where preparedness feels peaceful, practical, and possible. Hosted by Allison Michael, this show is about creating a calmer, more resilient life through everyday preparedness and intentional living. Inside the episodes, you’ll find realistic food storage tips, Allison’s Three Layer Food Storage system, preparedness skills, homemaking rhythms, and encouragement to help you care for yourself and your family with more confidence and less overwhelm. From emergency preparedness and food preservation to homemaking and building a well-stocked pantry, this podcast offers practical guidance to help preparedness feel more natural in your everyday life. Whether you’re filling your first pantry shelf or have been preparing for years, you can expect simple action steps, honest conversations, and a reminder that preparedness does not have to come from fear. Here, we believe in being prepared, not scared — one pantry shelf, skill, and intentional step at a time.
This Prepared Life
Wish List VS To-Do List: A Simpler Way to Plan Your Week
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After years of trying to get everything done, I realized something important: overwhelm is not a badge of honor.
In this episode, I'm sharing one simple mindset shift that has completely changed the way I plan my week. Instead of making a never-ending to-do list, I create what I call a wish list. It's a small change, but it's helped me feel less overwhelmed, more intentional, and a whole lot more at peace.
We talk about:
- Why busy doesn't always mean better
- The difference between a wish list and a to-do list
- Giving yourself grace in busy seasons of life
- Letting go of unrealistic expectations
- Focusing on your next best thing instead of trying to do it all
If you've been feeling overwhelmed by everything on your plate, I hope this episode encourages you to slow down, release some of the pressure, and remember that your to-do list doesn't define your worth.
Resources:
The planner I use: https://amzn.to/4eI4Ey5
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Welcome to this Prepared Life Podcast, a podcast for women where preparedness feels peaceful, practical, and possible. I'm Alison, and together we're building calmer, more resilient lives, one pantry shelf, skill, and intentional step at a time. Ladies, overwhelm is not a badge of honor. I'm just gonna say it, we as a society, not we as in you or me or anything, but as a society, uh it feels like busy, busy, busy is seen as you're doing good. And I want to challenge you to rethink that because busy is not always better, stressed is not better, anxious is not better. If you are feeling overwhelmed with your to-do list, if looking at everything you have to accomplish for the day causes you anxiety, this episode is for you. This is about a mindset shift, not necessarily a task. So you're not gonna leave with 10 action steps for no anxiety, but this is something that I do every week that helps me feel less overwhelmed with the tasks I need to complete each week. Each of us only has so much space in our day. We all have the same amount of hours, the same amount of minutes, the same amount of seconds, and we cannot do it all. I get asked all the time over on Instagram, how do you do it all? Ladies, I don't. You see the highlight reels, you see the beautiful pictures. If you follow me in stories, you see the ugly too. I tend to be pretty real sharing there, but I do not do it all. Let's just start there. None of us can do it all. There were times in my life when my kids were younger and we had animals and dairy goats and chickens, and they were in 4-H and we were homeschooling, where I literally would start each day with, what is going to die today if I don't give it some attention? And that is such an anxiety-driven way to live. I know that there are times in our lives as mothers when we're exhausted and our kids just need so much from us. And I just want to encourage you to give yourself grace if you are in this season. Maybe go listen to the episode of What Kind of Up Are You? Because you can only fit so much on your plate. And beating yourself up for what you didn't get done is not helpful. In fact, I would say it's harmful. Give yourself grace for what you can accomplish in the time that you have and know that the work you are doing is so valuable and so important. So, this is what I do each week. I sit down and usually with a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, depending on the time of day, and I start planning out my week. And I don't make a to-do list, I make what I call a wish list. Why is it a wish list? It's a wish list because I know I am not gonna get it all done. I have just accepted that. I acknowledge it. I am not gonna get it all done. So I make a wish list and I just get it all out of my head and onto paper. What do I need to accomplish this week? What do I want to accomplish this week? And I write it down. I do this in a paper planner, just write it all out. I add to it all week. It's a mix of have to items and want to items. I just get it all out. I have accepted it will not all get done. I acknowledge that it will not all get done. It's a wish list, and I just do my next best thing. I get up in the morning and I'm like, all right, what am I gonna do today? And I know there are some tasks I have to do, uh, and there are some tasks that I want to do, but I don't have to remember them because they're on my wish list. And I can just open that up and go, yep, I'm gonna do that. And I get it done and cross it off. And I even put things on there. I have an entire section in my planner that is just for me stuff. And so I will write stuff in there like journal or read my devotional, or if I have a meeting with a friend or need to go have coffee with someone and just have some people time, I will put that stuff on there because that stuff is just as important. So make a wish list rather than a to-do list. Accept that you will not get it all done, acknowledge that you will not get it all done, and just keep this running list throughout the week. When I hit the end of my week, I don't transfer things over automatically. I flip the page and I make my new wish list and I might look back and glance and be like, does anything need carried over? And usually what has happened is the things that haven't gotten crossed off weren't actually as important as I thought they were when I wrote them down at the beginning of the week. Some of those items might carry over to the next week, but the majority of them actually just fall off and never get done at all. That's how I plan my week. Ladies, it is okay to say no, even to good things, and remember that you control your to-do list. Your to-do list does not control you. Thanks so much for listening today. If this was encouraging to you or you found this helpful, please leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. And if you are watching over on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and leave me a comment so I know you're here. Thanks so much for listening and helping other women find this podcast because together we're building calmer, more resilient lives, one pantry shelf skill, an intentional step at a time.