Write down obligations to yourself and to others

Yesterday we tidied up our workspace. Today, we’ll start cleaning up our commitments.

Commitments are everything you’ve promised to do on a regular basis, to others or to yourself:

• Help friends with their project website,
• Work on this project,
• Be a member of the homeowners association board,
• Teach a course at university,
• Exercise,
• Write a dissertation,
• Coach a volleyball team.

These are all good deeds, but we do some of them only because we once agreed to them. We took on some just because we don’t know how to say “no.” We took on others because we genuinely wanted to—at first, the task was important and necessary, but now it drains our energy without giving anything in return.

This is how unpleasant and unnecessary tasks appear in our lives. We carry this burden for years, and it seems like the only right option because fulfilling obligations is responsible, and doing them against our will is noble. But we spend our life’s time on this and sacrifice our desires. This is one of the reasons why dreams don’t come true and important matters don’t progress.

We can live differently—engage in tasks that are necessary: they develop us, bring income or joy. For this to happen, we need resources for important matters—time, money, and attention. These resources won’t appear out of nowhere.

Commitments need to be reviewed, there’s nothing criminal about it. What’s really bad is simply not fulfilling the commitments we’ve made and letting people down. Such commitments are like unnecessary things—they exist, but they don’t work.

Conduct a review of your commitments

First step. Take a sheet of paper and a pen, and write down your commitments to yourself and to other people—in two lists. You can write them in a file, but it’s much better to write by hand, just try it.

You won’t remember everything in one go, so come back to the list when you remember something else, but already during the first attempt, move on to the next step.

Second step. For each commitment, ask yourself:

• Why did I agree to this? Do I still agree with it? Does this align with my current goals?
• What does this give me? Does it make me better? Does it help me develop or earn money? Does it help people who are important to me?
• Does this bring me satisfaction or joy? How do I feel when I’m doing this?
• Would I agree if I were offered to do this again?

You probably know the answers to these questions. Now—how do you feel? What’s unnecessary in this list? What do you want to remove from there? Mark these tasks.

Third step. Get rid of unnecessary commitments. In practice, this means telling the person you “owe” that you can no longer do this for them. It sounds difficult, but there’s a way to do it relatively painlessly.

Be honest with this person just as you are with yourself—tell them about the reasons. Most likely, you won’t be judged for this decision.

If other people heavily depend on you, for example, if you coach a sports team, or it’s about work, make sure not to let anyone down. Give time to find a replacement, even better—help with this. Try to ensure that the task doesn’t remain without you at the most inappropriate moment.

You can do this until there are zero unnecessary commitments, but even if you remove a couple, you’ll already feel better. You can get rid of them one by one per week, or per month—whatever is more convenient for you. Stock up on intention and patience. And make decisions.