Imagine you’re stepping into a diner.

You know, the kind of eating establishment with a huge menu that unfolds into an A3-sized paper.

Or, if it’s the kind of place where you have to scan a QR code to see the menu, you can scroll down the menu for absolutely ever.

The diner’s menu lists a bunch of dishes: burgers, pancakes, even Indian food.

Now, would you order all the items off the menu?

No. You pick one. Or a couple. Maybe next time you come back—assuming the food was tasty—you’ll pick something else.

But you don’t order every single item. In fact, there are many dishes on the menu you’ll never get around to trying.

And you don’t feel bad about that!

Now let’s think of a different kind of list:

Your to-do list.

We would wisely regard it as a menu: it shows us many things we could do, many ways to spend our time, that are valuable.

We’d sit down in the morning, look at our list, pick a few items to tackle today, and get going.

We wouldn’t feel bad about all the things we couldn’t immediately do… or might never do.

But that’s not always how it works, is it?

For some reason, the to-do list feels different. It feels like an absolute imperative to get around to every single one of these items. Ideally sooner rather than later!

Okay. I admit: this analogy isn’t perfect. You’re not always free to choose not do certain things. Many tasks really do need to get done, and soon.

But not all of them do.

In fact, there will always be many more things worth doing—and more dishes worth sampling—than you’ll have time for.

That’s natural and doesn’t bother you when you’re at a restaurant.

Don’t let it bother you when you’re looking at your to-do list, either.