I’m a planner. In fact, some people might say I have a problem. I make lists for everything, I plan for everything, and recently, I even found myself making daily lists and plans for both Penelope and Ryan Paugh.

In some ways this can be a problem, like when I stress out about future events that I have no control over. But if you have a grip on it, planning for the future is extremely important and beneficial to your career and to your life. Since coming to terms with my excessive planning nature, I’ve figured out how to plan effectively for the future without stressing myself out too much. Here’s how you can do it, too.

Know your goals and write them down

The first step is to have a basic idea of what you’re planning for. What do you want to do? Where do you want to be? This does not mean you should write down your one, three and five year goals. Instead, just write down a few things that you would like to achieve in your lifetime. The other day I glanced at my short list of lifetime goals for the first time in at least six months. It was pretty cool to see that I achieved two of them (starting a company and conquering my fear of public speaking) without consciously thinking about it.

Glancing over the list made me remember some other goals I’m still after, like running a marathon and living in a foreign country. Hopefully in another year I’ll be able to knock off another goal or two, but I’m not going to obsess over them anytime soon. If you don’t write a few goals down, one of two things will happen. You will either completely forget about them, or, if you’re like me, you will stress out about it at the wrong times and fail to accomplish the day-to-day tasks that will eventually get you where you really want to be.

Live in the moment

If you’re always thinking about the future, you will never accomplish what needs to be done to achieve your goals. Because I’m such a future oriented person, I have to constantly remind myself to live in the moment, and to do things that keep me focused on that. My favorite thing to focus myself is to go for a run, and when I start getting ahead of myself I repeat the phrase, “Be here now.” It’s like my own personal mantra that keeps me in the present.

I just started reading the book, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. The book discusses how our attachment to our ego leads to anger and unhappiness. But the main lesson I’ve taken from the book is to simply be present and to live in the moment. It’s not a great book—kind of boring, and a little too philosophical for me—but for whatever reason, every time I read a few pages, my entire body relaxes. I stop thinking about tomorrow’s schedule and I stop stressing about hitting milestones.

Whether it’s jogging, reading a book, or meditating— figure out what you need to do to relax and live in the moment and your future will fall into place.

Cut your to-do list in half and enjoy your accomplishments

Everyone needs a to-do list. If you don’t have a list of what needs to be accomplished during the day it’s way too easy to get sidetracked. But everyone should cut his to-do list in half.

It’s easy to create a list, accomplish a few things, then add more and more until you become an obsessive, stressed out, productivity machine. But accomplishing task after task for the sake of getting things done does not lead to happiness, and if you really take a good look at your to-do list, I guarantee you can cut it in half and life will go on. In fact, you’ll probably accomplish more if you don’t sweat the details.

Happiness comes from enjoying whatever it is you are doing and enjoying the things that you accomplish. If you’re not happy with what you’re doing right now and you can’t enjoy your small accomplishments, it’s a good indication that when you reach those large goals, it will just be another thing to check off the list. And that’s no way to lead a healthy life.