Now that you have identified the helpers and obstacles on your way to change and set goals to manage your kidney transplant, you may be feeling a little bit overloaded, stressed, and overwhelmed by all the things you need to accomplish at work and in your personal life, including your health.

Don’t worry! You are not alone with all these feelings. Remember it is time to take control of your life and be accountable for your actions without putting the responsibility on others or on external factors.

Tips for Priortizing Goals

You already went through the topics “My detailed action” and “These are a few of my favourite things”. Thus, it is important to have in mind some strategies to stay focused and to prioritize your goals. The following tips can help you:

  • Clarify the things you have to do. This is the time to decide if that task needs action or not.
  • Organize your action tasks by priority and category and keep them in a logical system. Assign due dates when possible.
  • Reflect on your to-do list. This is when you revise your plans and pick what your task should be.
  • Engage and get to work. At this point, all your tasks are organized by priority and broken down into actions. You know exactly what you should be doing.
  • Try to categorize your list in a balanced way where you have a pleasant task that will make you feel good in doing it alternating with another task that is a bit tedious, but you know it needs to be done.
  • Prioritizing and planning will allow you to do some of that. Learn to delegate chores to the people around you so you can focus your energy on things you want to do, including work.

The Urgent-Important Matrix

Another way to check if you are prioritizing urgent and important tasks is using an Eisenhower matrix also referred to as Urgent-Important Matrix. It helps to prioritize tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate or not do at all. This matrix divides the tasks into 4 categories: important and urgent, important but not Urgent, urgent but not important, neither urgent nor important. The task jotted under the first box is the “DO first” task. These are those assignments which are important as well as urgent for you and not completing could have bad consequences. The second quadrant is called the “Schedule” quadrant. These tasks though are important could be scheduled at your convenience. The third quadrant is for those tasks which you can “delegate” as they are less important to you than others but still pretty urgent. The last quadrant is called the “Don’t do” quadrant. One should delete these activities to increase your productivity of other quadrants.

Urgent-Important Matrix Sample

Try to build a matrix for yourself, prioritizing your important tasks to accomplish your goals

URGENT NOT URGENT
IMPORTANT DO
Do it now.		 DECIDE
Schedule a time to do it.
NOT IMPORTANT DELEGATE
Who can do it for you?		 DELETE
Eliminate it.

Now, take a look at Robert and Samantha‘s matrices.

Robert’s Matrix

URGENT NOT URGENT
IMPORTANT DO
Create a routine to play tennis 3 times/week with my brother or friends.		 DECIDE
Start some muscle strengthening at home (twice/week).
NOT IMPORTANT DELEGATE
Ask my wife to pick children up at school on days I have tennis (3 times/week).		 DELETE
Avoid sleeping late and late dinners (to avoid tiredness the next day).

Samantha’s Matrix:

URGENT NOT URGENT
IMPORTANT DO
Substitute healthier choices for processed food, frozen food, sugar and sweets.		 DECIDE
Buy a healthy cookbook. Search the internet for healthy recipe ideas/videos for the whole family.
NOT IMPORTANT DELEGATE
Prepare a shopping list for my husband. He’ll try to go once/week to get fresh organic food.		 DELETE
Avoid ordering junk food for delivery

Monitoring Progress

Keep a journal (analog or digital) to write down any thoughts or emotions that came through while focusing on a task. This will help you increase your self-awareness and understand what initiatives trigger discomfort and what motivates you.

Tip: at the end of the week, sit down for the last hour to evaluate your Matrix and check how this system worked for you. Ideally, you want to be working on tasks that are on the Not Urgent/ Important quadrant which means you are focusing on your vision, mission, and things that you can control.

Making Adjustments as Needed

As with other life problems, learning to manage your life after kidney transplantation involves adapting to new circumstances by making adjustments to daily habits and routines. Mutual support, such as support groups, can be very useful in this process.

Your Healthcare Team Can Help

If you are a still not sure what to do, talk to your healthcare team (nurse, physician, physiotherapist/occupational therapist and so on) and they will help you to solve some questions or provide you suggestions or modifications.

Accept ‘’Good enough’’. Perfectionism is a major source of avoidable stress. Find out what is good enough for a situation and accept that. Having lower standards will make a lot of stress go away whether it is at home or at work.

Monitoring is important

And remember, you know your body better than anyone. Make adjustments respecting your goals to better manage your health condition from day to day. The goal is to follow it regularly and adjust if your condition changes!