How ‘One Thing a Day’ Became My Sanity Saving Life Hack

Deciding to simplify my to-do list has helped lighten the load and protect my family from a Me they don't want to see.

Photo by Kier in Sight Archives on Unsplash

I have a confession to make: I can only do one thing per day. 

I recently made this grand declaration to my family and they all looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. 

Just hear me out. 

I’m a mom with a business. Just by virtue of that, you already know I do roughly 20 things every single day as a matter of course. Between the house, the dog, my work, food shopping-prepping-eating-and-cleaning-up, bill paying, homework-checking, teen-hawking, chauffeuring, and time for normal family connection, the days are packed. I’ve been trying to watch Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead since 2019. It’s not going well. 

Now, I have the pleasure of perimenopausal sleep disturbances, brain fog, and the occasional dash of mild rage, so, yeah, one extra ask is all I can take on in a day. Anything beyond that and I might short circuit. 

My beloved husband and children listened quietly (stunned into silence?) as I explained my new ground rules. I can only take on ONE extra thing PER DAY for our family. So it’s on them to negotiate and prioritize their requests amongst themselves. It’s for their own good, really. I wouldn’t want the bony shrapnel from Mommy’s spontaneous combustion to injure them.

My ONE THING rule has become a necessity due to the acceptance of a widely suspected and now confirmed modern truth: Nothing Is Easy (NIE)

Yes, NIE is an unfortunate yet wholly true fact of my life and yours. A task that should take five minutes takes 30. A call that should be quick somehow morphs into a customer service escalation with confirmation numbers and remote desktop sharing. An errand that should be barely a blip somehow sucks time faster than a co-ed doing a keg stand. 

As my children have grown, my to-do list has come to resemble a novella––endless, eye-twitching line items of big and small tasks, immediate and long-term needs, nonsensical nuisances and some serious stuff, too. Just when I think I have everything captured on paper, I lie down for the night and think of three more things to add. Santa has list-envy. Try as I might to get through it, I never can, and it always makes me feel like a failure. 

Why can’t I do 31 extra tasks each day! I’d scold myself.

Because you’re one freaking human, said my smarter self. 

So I finally listened.

Now, my running to-do list lives on a piece of looseleaf under a magnet on my refrigerator. It’s always long. But now it’s more of a reminder than a ransom note. All the things my family needs to accomplish are barfed onto the list, but now it’s not exclusively mine. I demand priorities or autonomy. Their choice.

Some ONE-PER-DAY tasks that default to me may include:

• Refill kid’s prescription

• Call insurance re: wrong billing

• Schedule car for recall repair

• Submit sports physical to school

• Replace light bulb in hall

Perhaps you overachievers out there think these seem easy enough. Why can’t she bang out at least three a day? Because NIE.

A prescription refill with my kid’s new doctor requires a login to an app, an electronic request, a follow-up call, a verification, a facilitation between the mom-and-pop pharmacy and my doctor’s office, and sometimes even shopping the script to multiple pharmacies because the supply chain for this medication is still not 100%. NIE.

Any call to an insurance company is less preferable to me than a pap smear while getting a bikini wax. It is sheer torture and I procrastinate as long as humanly possible because I know it’s going to skyrocket my blood pressure and trigger a hot flash. NIE.

Every car I’ve ever bought has experienced a recall at some point of my ownership. Recently, both my car AND my husband’s were recalled (what are the chances?), and the repairs take several days. So, that will involve me getting a loaner, which inevitably won’t have a third row, which will require me to call in carpool favors for sports chauffeuring. Easily an hour of wasted time because NIE.

Submitting a sports physical for my kid to participate on her high school team should be straightforward. It won’t be. It never is. Either the file is too large, too small, too blurry, or incompatible with the new portal they’ve inevitably decided to deploy without full testing. Calls will need to be made. Things will need to be rescanned. Ultimately, I’ll have to drive a hard copy to the central nurse’s office to keep on file, which will of course never make its way to the coach who’ll also need a copy for her files. NIE.

Replacing one light bulb should take a minute. But it doesn’t. For some reason, all the overhead light fixtures I chose in my house are fragile contraptions requiring actual tools to replace a bulb. Of course, I purchased bulbs advertised to last 10 years, but they lied. All of them died within five, and never at the same time. So, I’ll need to fetch the ladder, a screwdriver, and a helper, so we can dismantle the damn thing to replace a bulb. How many Hoffmanns does it take to change a light bulb? At least two. 

If a miracle occurs and I accomplish the One thing quickly and without headache, I will NOT move onto the next. Any such hubris would be counted as a direct challenge to Fate which will swiftly remind me that I’m never to gain extra moments to contemplate my navel. If by chance I do, I’ll inevitably get a call from school that a kid is sick, or my dog will eat some chocolate, or I’ll run over a roofing nail.

One thing per day.

One.

It’s safer for us all.

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