How Do You Eat an Elephant?

How do you eat an elephant? The answer is one mouthful at a time, and this has to be my mantra for the next week, month, or more.
I have returned from a wonderful holiday with my family in Cornwall. We had glorious weather and a great time.

We feasted on fresh locally caught fish at idyllic pubs. We sampled the local saffron bread. (I have acquired a recipe, and can't wait to try and re-create it) and relaxed on the wonderful beaches.
If you're wondering why we made a sand turtle, not a sandcastle, it's a Canadian thing apparently - it was a first for me, and just as much fun as a castle!

We were staying on the Lizard and the beaches and scenery were breathtaking. Top left is Lizard Point, the next two are Kynance Cove and the bottom right is Hendra beach. It never ceases to amaze me that if you are just prepared to walk a little way, you can virtually have a beach to yourselves. We swam and fished and generally relaxed, enjoying precious moments of family togetherness.

The villages were so pretty and I love the aqua, red and white splashes of colour in the harbours. And a boat as a flower tub?? I don't think it would have quite the same effect in the Midlands!

So now I'm back home, and my son and daughter-in-law have gone back to Canada. I have a love-hate relationship with airports. They're exciting, bubbly places if I'm there to meet them off an incoming flight, but places of tears and heartache if I'm saying goodbye, especially when I don't know when I'll see them again. But life has to go on, and at least in this day and age we have Skype  and FaceTime, so I should count my blessings.

Inevitably thoughts now turn to tasks that need to be done and works in progress that need to be progressed and that's where the elephant comes in:
I have soooooo many projects to finish, and even more in my head, jostling for first place on the starting line.
I have my Greenfields knitting projects to do....and I'm way behind with those. By my calculation we are 33 weeks into the year, so I should have 33 completed baby items.......I only have 29 and enthusiasm is waning.

Not the enthusiasm for the knitting, just for the yarn that I'm using. I'm left with drab or odd colours that don't make good baby clothes. The point of the exercise is to use up my stash, so I can't justify buying some really cheerful colours to add to it, well, not yet, anyway. I may have to if the finished items start to look really awful!
I have my Swoon quilt to complete - now I don't need any encouragement to work on this, just time.

I need to do a lot more work on my Farmer's Wife quilt. This is supposed to be a quiet moments project, not a "must get done" type, but it keeps getting pushed to the back of the pile.

I have the Rows Quilt Along from Bee in My Bonnet to finish that I started about this time last year, and haven't done any more to since. Ooops!!

I have at least 4 new knitting patterns at various stages of completion for the Etsy and Craftsy shops, and I need to get these done!! Some are so ridiculously close to being finished, I don't know why I haven't done them ages ago.

I have so many ideas for quilty things in my head that it's fit to burst, but I can't start them until I have completed a few of the WIPs, and finally (saving the best till last here) I have a ton of baby knitting, baby sewing and nursery sewing that I want to do because I recently heard that one of my nieces is expecting a baby in February!!! I shall be a great aunt! Yikes, that makes me feel so old!!! My niece is a great photographer too, so maybe, just maybe I shall have a new little model for some of my patterns as well.
I've told myself I can't start any happy, exciting, super special baby projects until some of the WIPs are completed, so in order to stop myself rushing frantically from one half finished project to another, picking them up, putting them down, and generally being in too much of a tizz to finish anything, I have to adopt the "one bite of the elephant at a time" policy and go steadily and methodically through the backlog,  and see if I can get caught up enough to unleash some of the new project ideas buzzing around in my head.
At least it means I don't have too much time to miss my family!
If you have any techniques to help get you through the unfinished projects in your life, please share them with me.