If you have a lot of responsibilities, the idea of getting ahead is really appealing. Unfortunately, for many things that’s not possible. Sometimes you can only keep up or catch up. Other times, falling behind means you need a reset.

Take doing the laundry or dealing with email. You might be able to keep up or catch up, but you can never get ahead. Once you accept this, you might reconsider your schedule. Are you getting frustrated that you cannot drain a river?

When you complete some tasks late, you’ve missed opportunities and need to start over. If you skip washing your car for a few weeks, you don’t need to wash it three times the next week. Let those missed weeks go, wash the car and get back on schedule.

You can get ahead of tasks that have specific deliverables and deadlines. If I write three blogs tonight, I can take a couple of days off from writing. If I plan to buy gifts for special events, I could buy them well in advance and have peace of mind that I’m prepared. Getting ahead and creating some slack feels good.

What you do to manage your to do list? What could you do to create some slack or at least feel better about your never-ending inbox?