I typically have a lot of projects in play. They’re generally pretty similar, have a similar scope, and require about the same amount of time. I’d say there are three main areas (or broad contexts or categories): design projects, church-related projects, blogging projects (personal and otherwise), household maintenance, auto maintenance, and fine art. Most of these can be done anywhere since they tend to involve writing, sketching, or otherwise thinking.

So here’s the problem: I want to do all of them at once, and have relatively the same amount of enthusiasm for each project or task. I get overwhelmed since I can’t decide which to do first. Then I end up doing nothing, which leaves me frustrated since there’s all this stuff I want to do that I haven’t even done.

I can’t really prioritize these tasks, since they all carry about the same amount of importance (to me, at least). “Importance” can be interpreted as another word for “anxiety.” The main problem is that I don’t know what to do first.

I had this exact problem Saturday morning. My wife was at a training conference, and I was in the hotel room with about an hour of time to kill before checking out of the hotel and meeting up with her for the rest of the conference. So I decided to try to tackle some of my projects. I reviewed my list and updated it, and looked at everything there. Sure enough, they all had about equal importance to me. Some things I couldn’t really do at the moment, such as put some finishing touches on a painting I started last summer since I was 200 miles from home.

But some think-y stuff, like brainstorm topics to blog about for work.life.creativity, I could do. Thumbnail sketches for a project for an old friend, I could do.

So I just started at the top of my list, and worked my way down.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. I was ticking things off my list, like little tin ducks at the shooting gallery at a county fair.

It’s not particularly clever, but sometimes that’s what it takes to make a dent in your to-do list.

So how do you determine what to work on first? Sound off in the forums.