It’s so easy to find myself getting sucked into making never-ending lists during summer, even if I don’t have any school work that day. 

Usually to make myself more organized, or at least to help me feel more organized, I’ll make myself a list of things I have to do that day or that week. 

It’s easy to throw everything on a list, from homework to groceries to plans, the list literally just goes on. It seems to never end some days. 

After more than a month of making daily to-do lists, I noticed that I always forget to add something to this never-ending list.

I always forget to put something for myself on there. 

That could mean getting myself a little treat like coffee, breathing for ten minutes, playing with my pet, or taking a nap. Here’s the thing though, I have cut out the stigma of needing a reason for the “treat.” I stopped forcing myself to put other things before my own health or needs. 

Way too often I find myself needing to complete tasks on my lists before I allow myself to do something for myself. 

I’ll say, “after I complete this one thing that will take no more than an hour, then I’ll rest for ten minutes.” 

It’s like I have to prove my productivity levels to those around me before I can do something that may be productive to my mental or physical health. 

People should be urged to spend more time with themselves, doing things that they enjoy.

Instead, I feel like most days I have to do everything I possibly can to feel productive during the day, even if that means stretching myself so thin that my work performance suffers. 

I will find myself actually becoming less motivated to do my work if my list is just sitting there staring at me. 

Not to mention that sometimes tasks take much longer than other tasks, so I can sit at my computer for two hours and not even mark something off my list, which makes me feel so unmotivated and like I’m not being productive enough. 

When I started adding things for myself to the top or the middle of my to-do lists, instead of at the very bottom where they never got done, I actually became more productive. 

I’ve allowed myself to take breaks without having to finish x-number of tasks so that the break was warranted by my level of productivity.

I started by putting obvious things on my lists after each task, like the following: ten-minute break from screens, water bottle refill, get up and stretch, bathroom break, 20-minute cat nap, ect. 

By the end of the day, I am usually just as productive and I am never upset that I may have taken an extra hour to ensure that I was working with the best mental space possible. 

I can’t believe that adding more things to my never-ending lists actually ended up helping me complete more tasks.