Prioritizing

Prioritizing apparently is not my forte. At least not in the sense of prioritizing in order to bring balance to my life and my work, and to ensure that everything that needs attention is getting it. I'm very good at prioritizing whatever it is I want to be doing, to the exclusion of everything else.

And therein lies the rub. I'm living a multi-tasking life, as we all are. There are not only many different things that I HAVE to do, such as caring for kids, doing the dishes, running errands, paying bills, but also many things I WANT to do, such as work on eBay, write my book, sort out the unfinished side of the basement, read, blog, etc. And it seems there's just not enough time to do it all. Which necessitates prioritizing. Which I suck at.

It's kind of funny to be just shy of 40 and really having to face the realities of these shortcomings of mine. I'm not good at prioritizing, and, related to that, my time management skills could use a boost. I tend to operate by emotion, rather than self-discipline, meaning if I feel like doing something, I will, and if I don't, I won't. There are obvious exceptions - I must help the kids get ready for school, I must make dinner for the family, etc. But there are many things I ignore because I feel like doing so (the dirty toilet, the errands I was supposed to run yesterday, the Quicken software that feels too complicated to learn right now so I'll do it 'later', etc). That's a luxury. It's something I would never do in a real paying job.

So I'm left wondering today: 1) Am I doing too many things? What is realistic? 2) How do I prioritize in such a way that everything gets the attention it needs, in logical appropriations of time invested? 3) How do I develop the discipline to do what I ought to do, not just what I want to do? 4) How do I let go of the guilt I feel for not excelling in 1, 2, & 3?

In some ways it's great to be excited about so many things. I LIKE that I'm interested in writing, genealogy, drawing, eBay, etc. But real life is real life, and I don't want to short shrift my family in favorite of those things. And I think I often do. Not only that, but even when I'm doing them, I'm thinking about everything ELSE I should be or could be doing, and so I'm not even 100% in the moment with the things that I enjoy! Is that nuts or what?

How do YOU find balance in your life between what you want to do and what you need to do? And even within those categories, how do you decide how much time to give to each thing?