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Summary of the one thing at a time tool

1. Write out a list of all of the issues in your life that you find yourself thinking about from time to time. Some people find it useful to think of these as a set of ‘books’ that they can either be working on or have on the shelf at any point in time.

2. For each issue write out the next possible steps you could take (where there are steps you can take to fix at least some aspects of the issue).

3. For those issues where you cannot think of any possible next steps, simply write: ‘just accept that this is the situation’.

4. Kept the list of items next to you, or on you, as you work during the day and have a way of indicating which issue you are currently focusing on at any moment in time.

If you find your mind drifting from the particular issue that you are meant to be working on at that moment in time, encourage yourself to move back to the one issue that you are working on. Using the book metaphor, imagine that you are picking up the book you do not need to work on at the moment, closing it and putting it up on a shelf.

The one thing at a time tool

• The mind loves chewing things over. It mistakenly believes that this is the best way of fixing any problem - by just spending a whole lot of time thinking about every aspect of the issue and what you can do, or can not do, about it. Research shows that people can spend almost 50% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are currently doing and this typically makes them unhappy.

• This is a mistake of course. If you have been grappling with an issue that has gone on for any period of time, the chances are that you have thought through all of the options regarding what you could possibly do about it. Nonetheless, the mind continues to mistakenly believe that with only a bit more thought, you will work your way through to a definitive breakthrough.

• In fact, the real way to deal with issues is to either 1) act to do something about them now, or 2) accept that you are not going to act at the moment but may in the future, or that there is nothing that you can ultimately do about the issue. If there is truely nothing you can do about an issue, then your only choice is to accept the pain associated with not being able to do anything about it and move on.

• In addition to pointlessly thinking about one particular issue, the mind has another irritating trick. When you are trying to focus on a particular task, or not focusing on any task at all, the mind likes to entertain itself by constantly flicking between thinking about different items from the list of issues that you are facing. As it flicks between these, you are constantly being reminded of the stressful things you are having to face in life in regard to each of the issues. However this thinking is not at all useful for actually fixing any of these issues. Just thinking about these stressful things often triggers emotional reactions that can then result in you being even more stressed.

Details about each of the steps in using the tool

1. Write out a list of all of the issue you find yourself thinking about from time to time.
   Such a list could look like 1) The work task I am working on now 2) Doing housework 3) My health 4) Problems my kids are having 5) What I am going to do about my career 6) Whether I should stay in my relationship 7) The political situation in my country. . .
   
   Keep this list handy so you put it on your desk next to you when you work or on your computer or phone. You may need to be a bit obscure about how you word some of the issues if others are going to see them. For instance, issues such as 4 and 7 about your kids and your relationship.
   

2. Set out the next possible steps you can take for each issue. If you think about each issue for a moment, you will be able to identify any possible action steps that you could potentially take to progress the issue in some way. e.g. 5) What I am going to do about my career. Possible actions: 1) talk to a friend who is in the type of work that I might want to get into, 2) ring a career guidance counsellor, 3) do a Pros and Cons table comparing the two career options I am considering. You do not have to absolutely decide on which course of action you will take, you can include several options. The important point, however, is to set these out as specific possible courses of action, actual things that you can do if you chose to.
   

3. If there are no next possible steps for an issue you can take at the moment, write down ‘just accept that this is the case’ next to the issue. When you have time to focus on the issue, use the Accept Your Feelings Tool to work on accepting the feelings you have about not being able to currently, or ever, fix the particular issue.
   

4. Keep your Issue List next to you as you work and have a way of indicating what particular issue you are focusing on at any moment in time. For instance, you may lay a pen over that issue, or put an X next to it if the list is on your computer or phone. Include some generic issues such as: 1) The work task I am working on now or 2) Housework, in addition to the specific issues. It is a good ideal for the list to include generic items that cover all of the things you focus on in life, in addition to specific items. This means that you can always have a way of indicating to yourself exactly what you should be exclusively focusing on at any moment.
   

5. If you find that your mind is drifting to focus on a different issue, say to yourself something like: ‘Thank you for wanting to do some work on this other issue, however you have already thought about it a great deal, I don’t have any confidence that you will be able to fix it just by more thinking about it. There will be an action point in regard to it, or alternatively I will just have to accept that at the moment I can’t fix it. Once I have finished with the current task I am working on, if you like, I can go back and have another think about whether I can do that issue’s action point now or whether I just need to accept that I can’t do anything about it at the moment’.
   
   You can use the Focus Your Thoughts Tool on a regular basis to build your ability to stop your thoughts about issues that you are not currently directly focused on. You can practice the Focus Your Thoughts Tool on its own, or use it as part of developing a regular ongoing Clinical Mindfulness (CM) practice.

Please note when you are doing any type of psychological or self-development work, if you find yourself feeling overwhelming emotions, troubling thoughts or actions, you need to talk to a health professional.