On an average weekday, my chances of completing my to-do list are only slightly better than the odds of a Nigerian prince sending half his inheritance to me in sacks of gold coins delivered by a leprechaun. In my job, I spend most of my time in meetings or dealing with “urgent” requests. I must add five new work tasks for every one I complete. When work is over, I might have just enough energy to cook myself dinner before I collapse in front of a digital screen for the night.

Last month, I discovered the secret to getting things done: I took a vacation.

Right after I arrived in Manchester, UK for a five-day visit, I stopped at a cafe and jotted down about twenty things I wanted to accomplish. By the time I left, I had done 19 of the 20 tasks on my list (I missed #20 because the place closed 2 hours early and I didn’t get there in time) and still had plenty of time to go off script.

The key difference is that when I travel, I feel a sense of urgency: I know if I miss out on something by the time I leave, I might never get a chance to try again.

This past month, I tried to bring that same mentality to normal, everyday life. I began each week by saying to myself, “This is a week I’ll never get back; how do I want to spend it?”

Normally I start with a huge list and immediately feel overwhelmed. The simple act of starting my week with a fresh to-do list was a revelation. By restricting myself to what I could achieve in a week and trying to avoid pushing tasks to the following week, I had to be selective. In Manchester, I could do whatever I wanted to do from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. At home, almost half of my waking hours (and most of my energy) are dedicated to my job. I decided if I could commit to just one thing per weekday outside of my job and my daily routine, that would be an achievement.

That “one thing” replaced my old habits with something to look forward to each day after work. Instead of streaming videos, I watched a couple of great films at my local, independent movie theater. Instead of taking a nap, I joined a local gym and began working out three times per week. I went shopping for the necessities I had put off for weeks. I discovered local events and spent time with friends I hadn’t seen in months.

Problem solved? Not quite. There are still some major areas I’m having a hard time with.

My job still requires more time and energy than I have available. I’m working to make my meetings more productive so we don’t need so many of them, but it’s a necessary evil while I try to keep my team on track.

Ironically, one of the most difficult areas is the main one that inspired me to take on this “vacation” challenge in the first place: my writing commitment. I spent the first half of the month pushing writing activities off to the following week, and by week four I had spent a grand total of about two hours on my blog and 30 minutes on my novel.

I knew part of the problem was the same issue I’ve had with to-do lists in general: the bigger they are, the harder I fail. I could have come up with a thousand things I needed to work on to complete my novel, but if I had listed them all I would probably find the nearest bridge and frisbee my laptop into the horizon.

I tried just doing one thing at a time, but because I didn’t know where to start, I would just come up with a random task. Doing something was better than nothing, but it’s hard to feel like you’re progressing towards your destination when you have no sense of direction.

Then I remembered I had subscribed to the online learning service, Masterclass, at the end of last year. In typical New Year’s Resolution fashion, my enthusiasm for the program lasted all of three weeks before it fizzled out. This felt like a perfect time to try again: what better way to find direction than with a writing curriculum? Then it’s easy to know where to start: lesson one.

When I have too much time on my hands, it’s amazing how fast it goes by. But by limiting my planning to one week at a time and my projects to one step at a time, I hope to reach the point where I don’t need to wait for my next vacation to feel good about how I spend my time.

My recent, six-day vacation in Manchester, England was the first time I’d traveled by myself outside of the U.S. since college. My vision was to be the anti-tourist, to get a taste of what it would be like to live in Manchester. No guidebooks; just word of mouth and a little googling. No hotels; I’d stay in an apartment through Airbnb. No all-day bus tours of famous sites; I would walk everywhere and take the time to relax and chat with people or read a book.

By the end of my trip, I had visited a dozen pubs. I spent hours browsing a used bookstore and left with as much as I could carry. I got a massage and a haircut. I ate a different cuisine every day. I went to two concerts, a movie, a museum, and a nearly 400-year-old public library. I took at least a hundred pictures.

The irony is, aside from exploring the 17th-century library, I could have done most of these activities in my own neighborhood. But I don’t. I tend to rotate between the same 2-3 bars and restaurants every week. In the past four months, I’ve been to two local bookstores, seen two movies, visited the local library twice, and been to one museum. I haven’t been to a concert in months. I’ve moved four times since my last haircut and massage. Most of my pictures are of meals I’ve cooked at home.

If I had truly wanted to simulate what it would be like for me to live in Manchester, I would have had groceries delivered to the Airbnb and spent most of the week indoors, working and eating and watching videos.

But I couldn’t. By the time I stepped off the train to Manchester and stopped at a coffee shop, I was already writing down all of the things I wanted to see and do. And aside from one place that closed early, I did everything on my list.

How can I have a busy agenda every day for a week and manage to get it all done, yet at home, I can go for days without setting foot outside my place?

For years, I’ve rebelled against the idea of being a tourist. I see tourists as largely ignorant, obnoxious, disrespectful people who treat other people’s neighborhoods and workplaces like their personal amusement parks.

But there’s another side to tourism. Tourists appreciate what locals take for granted. What tourists will travel thousands of miles to see, many locals just see as another silhouette in their skyline.

And while I may not want to think of myself as a tourist, my trip to Manchester taught me something about myself: time matters more to me when I travel. Every day when I woke up, I was reminded of the fact that I might never come back to Manchester. That realization propelled me out the door and fueled my need to explore.

At home, I take nearly everything for granted because there’s always tomorrow. I can visit the library tomorrow. I can exercise tomorrow. I can contact that person I care about tomorrow. I can work on my novel tomorrow.

I’ve spent most of my life waiting for tomorrow.

But whether it’s spent on another continent or in my home, every day that passes is a day I won’t get back.

Maybe it’s time to embrace my inner tourist. How would I approach the next week if it was all the time I had to visit this life?

The optimist in me is proud of the fact that I’ve managed to publish a blog post every month for well over a year.

The pessimist in me thinks I should be writing every day instead of waiting until the last minute to write the bulk of my posts.

The realist in me recognizes that it’s my nature to rely on the pressure of a looming deadline for motivation, but if I want to achieve my goal of publishing a novel, I need to make room to write every day.

The idea of making the leap from writing just often enough to crank out a monthly blog post to working on my novel every day AND blogging seems overwhelming.

Instead of making my blog and my novel compete for my time, I’m going to start using my blog to help me make room for my novel; and hopefully use my desire to write a novel to motivate me to address other obstacles in my life.

I struggle with clutter, but in order to focus on my writing, I need to control my physical space so it doesn’t distract me. Poor sleep and long work hours wear me out, but I need to be well rested and disciplined with my schedule to make time to write. I tend to prioritize tasks that others are counting on over ones that are for my own benefit, but this is one project I need to be able to do for myself.

Next month will mark the first chapter in my new life as a novelist.

I’ve tried and written about a lot of new things since I started this blog. Many have been experiments that came and went; but a few I’ve stuck with for weeks, months, or longer. The difference seems to be people-pleasing. In general, if I’m just doing something for my own benefit, it doesn’t last long. But if I feel like someone else needs me, I’m much more likely to commit.

I signed up for Spanish lessons, a writing group, and Aikido classes because I knew I’d be much more likely to show up if someone else was counting on me than if I tried to do these things alone. I’ve published a post every month since I started this blog because I pledged to my readers that I would do so. In most cases, it’s been a “win-win”: I’ve learned a lot, helped others, and made many new friends.

But recently, my people-pleasing tendencies blew up in my face.

Imagine if you spent weeks writing a poem for someone, you read it to them, and they told you they hated poetry. Or maybe someone asked you to wash their car, you spent hours making sure every inch was spotless, and they said the automated car wash could have done a better job. My experience was along these lines only on a larger scale–some people asked me to do something, I worked very hard to give them what they wanted, and they criticized the outcome.

At first, I felt resentful and I regretted the time and effort I had put in. I was able to salvage the experience a bit by reflecting and taking lessons from it. But that didn’t make up for everything I sacrificed in pursuit of people-pleasing.

If I could do it over again, I probably would, but with a different approach.

What’s in it for me?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help people. But if that’s your only motivation, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment. You can’t control how someone else responds to your efforts. No matter how hard you try, you can’t guarantee they’ll be happy with the result or show appreciation.

Instead, before you make a commitment to someone, give yourself permission to ask the question, “what’s in it for me?” It doesn’t mean you’re selfish. It means you recognize that your time is just as valuable as everyone else’s.

Maybe you can treat it as a personal challenge. Writing poetry can stretch you as a writer. Washing a car is good exercise. If you approach a task with the mindset that you’re doing something for yourself in addition to other people, even if no one else appreciates it, you can still feel like it was time well spent. There’s also a good chance you’ll enjoy the process more and end up with better results.

If you have absolutely nothing to gain, maybe you’re not the right person for the job.

I used to look at being a people pleaser as a personal flaw. Now I recognize that it’s just part of what drives me and I try to use that to my advantage by creating situations where I’m accountable to others.

But if you’re a people pleaser, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that you’re a person, too, and you deserve to be happy.

I lived in India for a year. I spent six months at the University of Delhi completing my undergraduate studies and taking sitar lessons. Then I stayed in the country for another six months to travel and resume my lessons. I wrote a thesis on how my experience with my sitar guru altered my perception of India and the ideas of “East” vs. “West.” I explored the opulent Taj Mahal and old, decaying temples spattered with bat guano. I sunbathed on the roof of a houseboat in Kashmir. I got pelted by fistfuls of colored powder and balloons filled with colored water in celebration of Holi (for clarity, this was fun, not a form of abuse). I body surfed on massive waves and danced on the beaches of Goa. I met people who invited me to their homes for dinner within minutes of our first encounter, while others threw rocks at me as I walked down the street. I shared a flat with a family of six where I had my own bedroom and the others shared three beds in one room. Fifty steps away people slept on the sidewalk.

My year in India was perhaps the most transformative experience of my life. It’s the topic I most enjoy sharing when people ask me about myself.

It also happened over twenty years ago. And the more I talk about it, the more I remind myself of Al Bundy.

Al Bundy was the main character of a TV show from the ’80s and ’90s called Married… with Children. It’s a program I would now consider a guilty pleasure–a goofy sitcom with plenty of low-brow humor, misogyny, and other qualities I would normally avoid. But buried beneath its superficial surface, that show left me with lessons I still cherish.

Al leads a less-than-envious existence. He and his wife show their affection by berating each other. His kids don’t respect him. He works a low-wage job selling women’s shoes. His time with friends mainly involves drinking beer and complaining.

But there’s one aspect of Al’s life that fills him with pride: he scored four touchdowns in a single football game . . . in high school. He may be in his 30s and 40s over the course of the program, but that doesn’t stop him from bringing up his teenage glory days at every opportunity. Al’s life may be going nowhere, and he may not be doing anything to change that. But by reliving his past, he’s able to feel like a hero again; at least for a moment.

I don’t want to diminish the impact that my year in India had on me. But if I need to go back over twenty years in order to find a part of my history worthy of sharing, it’s time to adjust how I live my life.

One way I can go about this is to try new things, particularly ones that help me grow. I know that living in another country taught me a lot about myself and the world around me. It pushed me to adapt in some instances, such as the intensity of my sitar practice versus prior musical training. In other cases, it highlighted my weaknesses–I don’t think I could give directions to any part of Delhi even after spending most of a year there. What else can I do to challenge myself?

I can also become more invested in my day-to-day life. I’ve taken trips to exciting places and barely even looked at the photos I took. I’ve met interesting people and made little effort to stay in touch. I’ve walked for miles and never stopped to look around. I’ve read books and watched movies with my eyes while my mind was somewhere else entirely. If I can learn to be more present while life is happening, and take more time to reflect upon what happened, these experiences will become much more interesting–at least to me.

I’m grateful I had the opportunity to spend a year in India. But I’m not there anymore. Now I want to learn to appreciate today, look forward to tomorrow, and develop new stories to share.

Social anxiety is insatiable. It not only screams at me for attention when I’m around people or thinking about a future social event. It also loves to play back its video library of the many awkward experiences we’ve shared in the past.

There’s one story in particular that social anxiety has decided to tell me over and over again. It took place at least fifteen years ago, yet I can still remember much of it in vivid detail.

It started out with me meeting with several friends I had known since my early teens. With them was an attractive woman I’d gone to high school with but never gotten to know.

We all started the night by heading to what continues to be one of the most terrifying settings for me: a dance club. Most of the time when dancing is involved, I like to hide in a corner and nurse my drink. When I do dance, I typically keep to myself, sway to the music, and try not to make eye contact with anyone. I have very little experience dancing with other people, and I try to keep it that way.

Enter the attractive woman from high school. She asked me to dance. I resisted, but after some encouragement, I followed her onto the dance floor. My heart was racing from self-consciousness. I started to sway, keeping a safe distance. She did her best to mirror my movements and smile. By the end of the song, I’m sure she could tell I was uncomfortable. She led me back to our friends.

Later that night, we arrived at my friend’s house. He had a pool in back and several people decided to jump in. They began joking and splashing each other and otherwise having fun. There’s not enough room for me, I thought, standing at the edge of the pool and watching in silence. My former dance partner decided that was unacceptable. She swam up to me, tugged at my shorts, and pulled them down. Shocked, I jumped into the pool to hide myself as I pulled my shorts back up. I swam closer to the group and feigned enjoyment. Underneath, I still felt like I didn’t belong.

Eventually, we got out, dried off, and headed to the living room. I sat in a chair and the shorts thief sat across from me.

“Tell me a story,” she prodded, smiling.

I fumbled through my mental file but couldn’t think of anything worthy of sharing. Instead, I sighed and said, “You wouldn’t understand my stories.”

I thought I was being mysterious. She thought I had insulted her. “Thanks a lot!” she shouted as she stormed out of the room. Her friends followed to console her. I sat there, dumbfounded and frozen by indecision.

I only saw her once more, over a year later at a holiday party. At that point, she had a boyfriend and had become, at best, begrudgingly polite to me.

That day is a constant reminder of how much fear and anxiety can sabotage my opportunities. My fear of looking like a fool held me back from dancing. My fear of large groups left me standing outside the pool. The pressure to tell a good story led me to say something offensive out of self-preservation and alienate someone who was trying desperately to connect with me.

In Ellen Hendriksen’s book, How to Be Yourself, she explains that for those who struggle with social anxiety, one of their main defense mechanisms is avoidance. As people identify the situations that trigger their fight-or-flight response, it’s easy to decide to just avoid those situations. Since that day, I’ve more or less avoided dance clubs unless I have about 10 or 12 drinks in me to cushion the blow.

That same tendency toward avoidance has been a driving force in my recent decisions on where to live. Four years ago, I lived in a large complex where I only met my neighbors because the person I was seeing coaxed me into attending the onsite cooking classes. After we split up, I moved to another large complex where in the span of two years, I spent a total of maybe five minutes talking to my neighbors and the rest of the time behaving like a bitter old man, hiding inside and cursing at people for slamming their doors. About one year ago, to minimize my exposure to noisy neighbors, I moved into a duplex. There I communicated with my one, upstairs neighbor through text messages when it was time to split the utility bill or I got up the nerve to ask him to turn his music down.

This year, I started apartment hunting again. My dream was to rent a backhouse–a peaceful sanctuary with no shared walls. When that option didn’t pan out, I expanded my search but ruled out most of the large complexes and any unit where I’d have someone above me.

Eventually, I decided to stop relying on the Internet and check out some apartments in person.

The first building had a vacancy in both an upstairs unit and the one below it. The one upstairs felt too hot. The one downstairs was cooler, but I asked the landlord to walk upstairs and, when I heard his footsteps above me, I vetoed that option.

The second place felt like a run-down nursing home–the interior of the unit was all white with a cold, white tile floor and an ugly patch of astroturf in the common area outside.

The third place ended up being a much bigger complex than it appeared to be in the pictures–27 units in all. However, the unit itself was upstairs and the bedroom didn’t share a wall with a neighbor. It was clean, modern, and overall pleasing to the eye. After touring the apartment, I went outside into the common area. A woman sitting outside offered to share her thoughts on the complex. I accepted, somewhat reluctantly. As I looked around at the shared seating area, barbecues, and kiddie pool, she talked about the vegetables she grew and shared from the communal garden; the nearby farmer’s market, and the outdoor yoga gatherings, occasionally stopping to say hello to a neighbor by name as they walked by.

I realized she was showcasing something I hadn’t really experienced since college–a community.

Suddenly, my dreams of isolation didn’t seem so enticing. I imagined what it would be like to step outside my apartment and have someone to talk to. I reflected fondly on the days when I lived in a dorm and neighbors would knock on my door and invite me over. I wondered if I might enjoy joining a group of locals for outdoor yoga.

I applied to that apartment the same day. Two days later, I received the news that my application was accepted. Tonight, I picked up the keys. Tomorrow, I move in.

I might even leave my door open.