Oftentimes, I find myself sitting in bed thinking about how I’ve wasted my day and squandered my so-called “free time.”

I think of everything I wanted to do and every way I fell short. I tell myself “I can’t go to bed yet, because if I do my free time will end.”

But when I think this to myself, do you know what I’m usually doing? I’m scrolling through Instagram or YouTube. I’m not actually doing anything, not really. And it’s the not-doing that gets to me. It grows into this awful cyclical nightmare in which I spend my time kicking myself over how I’m not spending my time. Can someone say irony?

The to-do about to-do.

In high school, I tried making a to-do list every morning–not for school, but for life. It contained all the things I wanted to do that day: draw this thing, write that thing, read this book, do that chore. But by the end of the day I’d always have practically nothing crossed off.

Now, that didn’t mean I didn’t do things. I meant I didn’t do those things.

I remember talking about with my therapist about it…

“By the end of the day,” I’d tell her, “the list looks exactly the same! I haven’t done anything on it!”

“So?” my therapist would ask.

“So,” I’d repeat, “I can’t go to bed with all those things still on the list! It’s impossible!”

“Impossible?” My therapist would raise an eyebrow. “But did you do any things? Any things at all?”

“Well, of course I did some things,” I’d say, “but they weren’t on the list.”

That’s when my therapist had this great idea. “Stop it with the to-do lists,” she said. “let’s make a to-done list instead.”

So, instead of thinking about all the stuff I didn’t do that day, I made a list of all the things I did do.

“Wowwww,” I hear you say. “This is totally revolutionary advice that I could’ve neeeever thought of on my own.”

I know, I know. But it’s a simple answer to a simple lie. Dwell on what you did, not what you didn’t.

What can I say other than I’ve a knack for ignoring the obvious? I think I can sometimes forget how powerful our minds are.

What about bad days?

Sometimes, we actually don’t get a lot of things done. But that doesn’t mean we have to kick ourselves about it. Self-condemnation really doesn’t get anyone anywhere–at least not anywhere good.

Now, I believe that not all time wasted is time wasted.

But I also believe that it can be so much easier to feel like a failure rather than a success.

So on the low days, where I really didn’t get much done, I’d keep my eye out for the small victories.

My list would look something like this:

• Got up before 10am
• Showered
• Spent time outside of my room
• Talked with dad
• played Animal Crossing for five hours

It’s okay. Sometimes, life gets to us. Sometimes we don’t get everything done.

So…go to bed.

Get some sleep. Put things down tonight and pick them up tomorrow.

You don’t have to be Superman.

Just because you didn’t clean your entire house today doesn’t mean that you’re wasting your whole life. When you came home from work, you did the dishes.

That’s not nothing!

Before you go to bed, though…

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