5 Ways to Make Your Insanely Long To-Do List Feel More Manageable

You don’t have to be having fun for time to fly by—it seems to race past us no matterwhatwe’re doing. The consensus: We often feel like we have too much to do and not nearly enough hours in the day to do it.

This is especially the case for people who’re juggling multiple responsibilities. (Read: basically everyone.) According to a 2015 study in theJournal of Marketing Research, people feel pressed for time when they have two goals that seem to conflict with each other—for example, wanting to eat dinner with the kids, but needing to work late to finish a project.

“Stressing about our personal goals manifests itself as a sense of having less time,” saysJennifer Aaker, PhD, a behavioral psychologist at Stanford University and one of the authors of the study.

Problem is, all that stress is interfering with your ability to, well, get things done. Here are five ways to manage with the pressure—and start feeling good about everything youdoaccomplish.

And another. And another. Breathing deeply can lower your anxiety levels and give you “a more expansive view of time,” says Aaker. In the study, people who were told to inhale and exhale 11 times reported less anxiety than those who simply counted to 11.

Another idea: Take a 10-minute breather. In our “time-is-money” society, it can seem almost indulgent to spend those valuable minutes on yourself. But carving out some time to relax isn’t a “loss”—in fact, it actually makes you more productive in the short-term, saysLinda Sapadin, PhD, a psychologist in New York and author ofHow to Beat Procrastination in the Digital Age. “Often, the best time to take a few moments to relax is precisely when you believe you don’t have the time for it,” she says.

Let’s face it: Not every responsibility requires the same amount of effort. But for the detail oriented, doing even relatively simple tasks—like firing off an email to an old friend—can balloon into big ordeals, says Sapadin. “You make a small undertaking into a stressful situation, and then you feel overwhelmed,” she says. “To change your pattern, simply respond with a few quick sentences. And get the task off your plate. It’s done! Good for you.”

Sure, you might want to learn Italian, or take up sailing, or write a novel—but let’s be honest: that’s not going to happen overnight. (Or, sorry, probably not even this year.) Why not? “Because thoughts come quickly, but doing them takes time and effort,” says Sapadin.

You don’t have to give up on your dreams, of course. Just don’t let the bigger goals overshadow the little tasks that need to be done today. “You can think, ‘It would be great if I did this [longer-term project],’” says Sapadin, “‘but right now, what I want to finish is this.’”