Should you make a to-do list, or just DO the to-do list?

Remember the old slogan, "Just do it!" from Nike? According to Greek mythology, "Nike" is actually the goddess of victory, so I'm guessing their subliminal message is that if you wear Nike sneakers, you'll be victorious.

Well what about, "Just find the time!" What product will make me victorious in finding time? My friends would all agree that the most whining I do is over my lack of time. They've got a million great ideas that would help with my freelance graphic design and photography, but my response is usually, "Awesome. Now if I can only find the time."

A project manager friend of mine told me to just prioritize whats on my list. Awesome. Now if I can find the time to do that ... and does "prioritize my to-do list" go on the top of my to-do list?

So far I've done an outstanding job rewriting those to-do lists. I've read several hundred times that creating lists only gets you so far — at some point you've got to stop the list-writing and start the to-do-ing. But still I can't seem to get myself to do that.

Or am I just hard on myself?

I've had numerous people tell me I'm incredibly organized; that they're impressed. But in my eyes, unless I fall into bed every night in complete exhaustion, then I didn't accomplish anything. 

It's been weeks since my project manager friend told me to prioritize. So far the most I've done is consolidate and rewrite the list so that I can prioritize what's remaining.

Maybe what I need to do is make a list of what I already accomplished. This way I'll stop flogging myself over the things that I haven't done, and start congratulating myself over the things I actually have done. Yes. That sounds fabulous. I'll call it the To-Done-List.

Awesome! I'll put that on my list of things to do.