It's time to get real, or at least get a realistic idea of how long things take to do.  Take a minute (or rather 10 minutes) and estimate how long you think it will take to do each of the tasks on your to-do list.  It may just be the eye-opening experience you need to understand why you can't do it all.  Hint: it's probably because we only have 24 hours in a day and you have to sleep sometime.

The next step is to find out how long a task actually takes to do.  You don't have to be accurate to the second or even the minute.  But by knowing that the email you think will take you just a minute to write really takes more like 30 minutes, you can then begin to either adjust the time you give yourself or the level of perfection you demand.

On the other hand, we often overestimate the time it takes to do things we don't enjoy.  Putting the file back that you grabbed instead of leaving it on your desk, really isn't going to take an hour, and neither is putting the clean dishes away.

Getting a realistic idea of how long things take can ease the pain of maintenance and perfection, especially if you use the information to determine what's good enough and what are activities that suck you into the black hole of wasted time -- email, internet browsing, flipping through channels to see if anything is on TV, or searching for new apps for your iPhone (not that I would know anything about that, of course). 

You can jot down your estimated time on your could-do list and then go back and note the actual time.  If you would like to try a form that I use sometimes with clients to help them 'get real' about time click here.

Whether you get real about time, pick one 15 minute idea to try, or take 30 minutes to try coaching, add "enjoy life" on your things to do this month.