Sunday, October 25, 2009

worry-wart

I worry too much, and officially have "anxiety". I just read today, on ehow.com, about how a person can use strips of paper to manage worries. However, I have had a thought that may build upon this technique. I have created a spreadsheet, with examples. Anyone is welcome to use it.

It uses the filtering (drop-down lists) feature in excel. If you get to a point where you're not seeing things you think you should see, check the data tab, and the filter funnel (or clear). Then, make sure you have only one cell selected and click on the filter funnel again. And besure to unclick "yes" in the "am I done with this worry forever" column.

Directions for inventorying worries:
  1. enter one worry per line
  2. fill out column B for every worry. for the "no"s go to step 3, and for the "yes"s go to step 6.
  3. for all the "no"s in column B, fill out column C. You can find all the "no"s by selecting the drop-down in cell B1, and select "no". Just be sure to go back and "select all on that column when you're done
  4. for all the "no"s in column C, put a "yes" in column E; then filter column E so you can't see "yes" rows - this is the same as throwing that worry away
  5. for all the "yes"s in column C, think about when you might be able to do something about it and put that info into column D (of course if you put "never" in column D, you might as well have put a "no" in column B instead - see step 4)
  6. for all the "yes"s in column B, get to work! This is where you are empowered! Do your thing! If you come back to the list at some later time and your worry was not taken care of, you'll need to see if you're still worried about it. Think about if you can do anything about it today, etc, and you're back at step 2.
Directions for using the worry list as a tickler:
  • make sure all data is showing except the "yes" entries in column E
  • click on the drop-down in column D and browse through it, selecting things that you want to focus on; things for which the date or event has passed, for instance
  • look at the the worry listed in column A and reconsider it, going back to step two in the above list