Sometimes life has a way of showing you that there are things that you need to work on. I’ve got plenty of examples lately that have left me running a gamut of emotions. (See also: Blog post theme for the week.)

One such example that spurs a looming sense of overwhelm is my work email Inbox. At the end of the day on Friday I had 496 unread emails. 496! How am I supposed to do my job effectively when I have more emails coming in than I can read and take care of and respond to? Plus, I just assumed an additional ton of responsibility, a new project, and another staff member to supervise. How in the world am I ever going to keep up with it all? My answer: Post-Its.

I love Post-It notes. All shapes, all colors, lines, no lines, doesn’t matter to me. I color my world with them. Well, that and glucose tabs. My favorites are the original square Post-Its. Like Chuck Taylor All Star’s and golf carts with the word “Prius” spray painted across the front, nothing beats the original.

I’ve set a new rule to write down everything that I want to get done for the week on a single Post-It. Mostly work-related stuff, with the occasional “order insulin” or “pay Medtronic again” thrown in for good measure. Once that note is full, I’m not going to fret over anything else getting done until I’ve crossed off everything on that list. If I can get everything on that one Post-It done, then my hope is that it will help me to stay focused and make progress, while also helping me to reduce the other “ess”…stress.

Inspired by Mike (What Some Would Call Lies) and Karen (Bitter~Sweet), there is also something else involving Post-Its that I want to start doing: Monday Mantras. I’ve started looking forward to seeing what Mike and Karen are going to post each week, and I think it really sets the tone for the week. Which is to say if you see me post a Monday Mantra that says, “Don’t strangle anyone,” it would probably be a good idea to tell me how fantastic my hair looks that day, or some other pointless nicety. You know, just in case.

So without further ado…