Getting My Life in Order

I have a list of way too many things that I want to learn about, or do, or learn to do.  This is different from my "Things to Do This Life" list, although a few of the items (like snowboarding) are on both.  This list is about things that I want to learn more about, like animal husbandry, or that I want to incorporate into a near-daily practice, like meditation.

I had been blocked for a long while on doing any of them because of one of my many bad reactions to stress.  When I start to feel overwhelmed about the amount of things I have to do, I shut down and can't do any of them.  I couldn't decide on which part of the list to focus, or on which item I should tackle first.  I felt like I didn't have time to do them all, so I did none of them.

I finally decided I needed to approach the list as I would numerous projects at a job, since simply trying to decide which one I WANTED to do first wasn't working.  I needed to prioritize them according to importance, time constraints and so on.  I assigned them all to categories, like Spirituality and Fitness, then assigned weight to those categories.  Most of the items fit into multiple categories, but that was okay--it made it even easier to weigh them.

The item that came to the top of the list surprised me--Learning to Use a Compass.  It fit into 8 of my 11 categories! (At the bottom of the list?  Sorting pre-digital photos and old cooking magazines.)

Now that I have a clear plan for these "tasks", I feel I can get a better handle on all kinds of things I've been avoiding (from simple things like putting freshly laundered, FOLDED clothes into drawers, to bigger things like sorting my entire closet-dresser-guest closet system). 

And maybe, just maybe, stepping a tiny bit closer to that elusive balance I seek.