Mistake #2: You Aren’t Focusing On Maintenance First

Maybe this scenario feels familiar:

It’s been weeks, months maybe years since you felt on top of your _____________ (insert: to-do list, e-mail, paper, home organization projects, mail, etc.)

Everyday more comes in and less goes out

It is exhausting.

So you decide to do something about it.

You stay up until 3am tackling everything that has piled up.

Or you take a whole weekend and get back to where things feel lighter and you can breathe a little easier.

Or you plan your vacation around knocking out as much backlog as possible.

And it kind of feels amazing.

You’re caught up. Cleaned out. Set free.

Except for one thing.

You don’t have a system to maintain it.

You’ve only dealt with your backlog.

Which is a giant feat but doesn’t actually solve your problem.

Guess what is going to happen come Monday morning?

You got it.

A new round of backlog begins.

Here’s your way out.

Draw a line in your mind right now between your maintenance system and backlog.

Decide that you are going to build a maintenance system first before you deal with backlog.

For right now, backlog is dead to you. Repeat: Backlog is dead to you. Once you have a consistent maintenance system in place it is much easier to set aside time to deal with your backlog once and for all.