When You Don’t Know Where to Start, Start Where You Are

Sometimes the problem isn’t that I don’t know what needs doing. I know perfectly well what needs doing. That’s almost the problem. There are too many things.

The washing needs put away. I need to answer that email. There’s something I was supposed to order three days ago. I haven’t sorted tomorrow yet. The kitchen needs tidied. There’s something important I’ve forgotten, although naturally I can’t remember what it is.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, my brain just stops.

I have so much to do I don’t know where to start.

Except sometimes it’s more than that. I don’t know how to start.

By the time I’ve reached that point, I’m already behind. There isn’t an obvious beginning any more. Should I start with the most important thing? The most urgent thing? The quickest thing? The thing I’ve been avoiding for longest? Should I write everything down first? Prioritise it? Make a plan?

Suddenly, before I can do anything, I’ve somehow acquired another task: work out how to start.

And I’m quite capable of getting stuck there too.

What if I don’t need to find the beginning?

This is something I’ve gradually realised about the way my brain works. When I’m overwhelmed, trying to construct the perfect starting point doesn’t help me start. It gives me another decision to make.

I don’t need to work out where I should have started. I need to start from where I am now.

Maybe I’m standing in the kitchen surrounded by things that need doing. Maybe I’ve just walked through the door. Maybe it’s 2pm and I’ve achieved absolutely nothing I intended to do that morning. Maybe it’s 10pm and I’m suddenly remembering everything I was supposed to do today.

That’s the starting point. Not the imaginary organised version of my day. Here. Now. This mess.

I don’t need the whole route

This is one of the reasons ordinary to-do lists don’t always help me. A list can tell me everything I need to do, but when I’m already overwhelmed, seeing everything at once can make starting even harder.

My brain starts negotiating. Which one first? What if that isn’t the right one? Actually, before I do that I need to do something else. Oh, and I’ve just remembered another thing. I’d better add that to the list.

Twenty minutes later I’ve reorganised the problem beautifully and still haven’t started.

What helps me much more is being shown one thing and then, if necessary, one tiny step within that thing. Not the whole day. Not the perfect order. Not everything Future Me needs to accomplish.

Just: What do I do now?

That’s what I built Faffalot to do

Faffalot doesn’t expect me to arrive organised. I don’t have to sort my life out before I’m allowed to use it. I don’t need to have planned my morning perfectly or remembered to start at the right time.

I can open it when I’m already stuck.

It gives me one thing to focus on. If that thing still feels too big, I can break it down into small steps and work through them one at a time. Then I move on.

That’s it.

For my brain, removing all those decisions can be the difference between spending another hour thinking about everything I need to do and actually doing the first thing.

Start where you are

There will always be days when I don’t start at the beginning. I’ll get distracted. I’ll forget something. I’ll lose an hour. I’ll start doing one thing and somehow end up doing something completely different.

I’ve spent enough of my life believing that once the plan has gone wrong, I need to somehow get myself back to where I should have been.

I don’t.

I can start from here.

I can start at 11:17. I can start halfway through the afternoon. I can start surrounded by washing with six other things competing for my attention.

I don’t need to know how I’m going to get through everything. I just need something to help me answer one question:

What comes next?

And then I can start.

Download Faffalot free on the App Store