Shrink the list of things you care about

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Daily Five, an experimental podcast by Aurooba, where I talk about something for five minutes. So let's get to it, shall we? Historically, I am one of those people who's either doing a lot or doing nothing. It is the most common trap that I've fall into. I have become painfully aware of that in the last little bit because I am once again in that season where I'm doing a lot, and I decided earlier this week that I need to fix that.

[00:00:44] The reason this happens for those of us who do a lot of things at the same time is you find yourself caring about things that you didn't even plan to care about. And then they start to take up more and more of your attention, and it happens in a lot of different places, and then all of a sudden you have so much on your plate and you don't know where it all came from.

[00:01:06] So instead of accidentally caring about too many things, I wanna try to be more intentional with what I care about. I don't know how many things I should care about. But I know that I definitely cannot care about everything all the time and be successful and actually make it happen. There are just certain things that I have to stop giving a lot of my attention to and care about a little bit less if I wanna get great at a few things or anything really.

[00:01:45] So earlier this week I sat down and made a list of everything that I found myself caring about on purpose or by accident in the last about five months. And just within my work life, there were 14 distinct buckets that I was focusing on. FOURTEEN. That is a lot of things. It is entirely unsustainable. It's completely ridiculous, and it's no wonder that I feel so scattered.

[00:02:17] So I decided it was time to prune. For now, I've whittled the list down by just under half or about half actually – putting my list at seven things I care about. And if I'm totally honest, this still feels like a lot. But I have no idea at this time how I could make it even less. So I'm sticking with that seven

[00:02:45] There are a few things that I decided to commit to and really just say, yes, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna care about it, and I'm gonna try to do my very, very best at them. And I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I've made these decisions. Of those seven things, you know, four things require my very intense attention.

[00:03:10] Two things are more people focused and are more about nurturing certain important relationships that are valuable to me. And you know, just overall being engaged with my community at work. Then there is one thing that needs my attention maybe once or twice a month, which I haven't actually been giving it, but I should.

[00:03:37] And when I, you know, list it out like that, it feels just a little bit more manageable than when I say, oh, there's seven things that I really, really care about all the time. Basically, I'm trying to be intense about things that matter and try to be super laid back or at least a little bit laid back about everything else.

[00:04:02] Not try to excel or be competitive in those other things, even though they're not gonna stop being part of my life. I don't really know how I'm gonna do with that super laid back part because as a rule, I am a very, very intense person. That's probably one of the most common words that people use to describe me when they meet me or have known me for a very long time.

[00:04:31] But I figured if I just treat everything else the way I treat housework, then maybe it'll be okay. Cuz you know, I don't give any attention to housework (laughs).

[00:04:45] Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.