The key to exchanging bad habits for good habits is changing your thoughts and beliefs. Once you do that, you’ll find that your behavior changes as well.

How does this work? Here’s an example. I have a client, Trisha, who’s a well-known attorney. Trisha’s desk was always piled high and her calendar was full. But she was hardly working less and making more. Instead, Trish worked 70 hours a week but never really caught up. She didn’t prioritize her workload, she never said no to a potential client regardless of how busy she was, and she constantly brought work home. Was Trish living her best life? Of course not. Was she miserable? You bet.

The funny thing is, Trish knew her bad habits were contributing to her misery. And I didn’t need to point these habits out to her. She knew exactly what they were. So why didn’t she change them?

She was afraid to try things another way. “Whenever my desk is piled high and my calendar is so full I don’t have time to take a shower, I feel really important,” she said.

I helped Trish replace some of her old habits with better habits. We redid her “to-do” list so that she did the important stuff first. Instead of a 70-hour work week, Trish committed to working 50 hours per week. She stopped bringing work home. And she said no to clients and co-workers when she needed to.

As Trish began to work less, she found that the relationships and interests she had previously ignored gave her tremendous fulfillment and self-worth. She had more joy, and more laughter, in her life. She felt better than she had in years.

Of course, there are a lot of other things I’ve asked you to put on the shelf for the time being. These are the small things. Nevertheless, you’re probably worried about these things, because they aren’t getting done.

And these things have to get done, right?

Well, maybe. At any rate, they’re not just going to go away on their own. You’re going to have to get rid of them one way or another.

There are three simple solutions to getting rid of those tasks that don’t fall into your Power of Three. You can eliminate them. You can delegate them. Or, you can automate them. The key is to figure out how to handle each task.

Let’s start with the simplest way to knock a task off your list—eliminate. This means, quite simply, just not doing it. If this sounds scary, rest easy knowing that a cool 50% of your tasks can be eliminated from your list with little or no repercussions. Start by eliminating one thing on your list. Just don’t do it. Did anyone notice? Did you notice? Eliminate as many non-essential tasks as you can. Trust me, it will start to feel pretty good.

What about the things that must get done, but don’t necessarily need to be done by you? Delegate those tasks. Hand the responsibility of getting those tasks done to someone else. Delegating allows you to do the things you are good at, and gives someone else the opportunity to handle the things you aren’t good at. We all have our strengths. Allowing someone else to pick up the slack where we’re weak allows us to focus on the things we excel at. And that’s a smart use of our time, don’t you think?

What does it mean to prioritize? It means doing the most important things first.

Until you learn to prioritize, brilliant things aren’t going to happen. Even if you get everything on your list done, it’s not going to get done in the right way.

Let me explain.

I have a client named Kelly who owns and operates a marketing company. Kelly is a tsunami of energy. One of those people who can do in one day what three normal people can do in a week.

Kelly is a list-maker. And she is driven to adhere to her schedule. The stuff on her list gets done. She had found a balance between her personal life and her work life. By all accounts things should have been going pretty well for Kelly.

So I was a bit puzzled to learn that, despite the fact she seemed to be doing everything right, Kelly was still feeling stressed and disorganized.

I asked Kelly how she approached her day. Finally, I stumbled upon the magic question.

“Which things to you tackle on your list first?” I asked.

“The easy things,” Kelly said confidently. “Sometimes the sheer volume of my list stresses me out. Getting the little things off first makes me feel like I’m accomplishing things right out of the gate. It definitely cuts down on the stress.”

I had to laugh. She devoted the first part of the day spending lots of time on the things that didn’t matter. By the time she got around to the important stuff she didn’t have much time to complete it, and her energy level was depleted as well. While she did get some of the important things crossed off her list, they weren’t getting done properly. No wonder Kelly was stressed!