Category: Overwhelm

Overwhelm – the word we use to describe so much coming at us at once that we can’t quickly identify the individual parts.

There are two ways to deal with overwhelm.

1. Ignore it and move on
2. Spend the time to identify the individual parts.

When any of your five senses are overwhelmed (hearing, sight, touch, smell and taste) a lot of times we just ignore it (or enjoy it) and move on. Emotions are another story, and I’ll leave that up to you to decide how to handle. However, when your thoughts overwhelm you, specifically your responsibilities, that’s where I have some definite thoughts.

The difference between being overwhelmed by your responsibilities (or to-do list) and most the others is that usually the other overwhelms occur once and then you can decide – quickly – whether to experience it again. For example, the taste of that dish was overwhelming; do I want to experience it again or not?

When your responsibilities overwhelm you, you still have that choice. However it requires a bit more time to ensure you don’t experience it again. If no action is taken, you’re pretty much assured that you’re going to feel overwhelmed again rather quickly.

So, how do we prevent overwhelm from happening again, once we’ve already experienced it? Stop or slow down! Yes, I realize that might sound completely counterintuitive. You want to get something done! Not add something else to your list of responsibilities!

However, I bet that’s part of the overwhelm right there, you don’t actually have a written list of your tasks. They’re all in your head, fighting to not be forgotten.

So, what’s your first step to avoiding or handling overwhelm? Make a list of everything you want to accomplish. Yep, sit down and write it all out.

Then, if you have someone to delegate to, decide what you can delegate to them and delegate it!

Next, decide what really must be done this week (or today). Yes, I know you want to do it all, but give yourself a break! There are only so many hours in the day and you need and deserve some time for yourself and your family. So, go through your list and decide what must and can be done and let the rest go until next week.

And repeat this until you actually have reasonably doable list.

As you go through your day, you’ll probably think of more things to add to your list. Add them! That way you’ll remember them and you’ll avoid feeling overwhelmed later. Remember to continue to be realistic about what can be done in a week!

Have you ever been to a seminar or an event where you got a bunch of really great ideas that you wanted to put to use right now? And then you took a look at all the ideas and got a bit of a sinking feeling in your stomach (aka overwhelm) because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do all of that and still do things like sleep?

Guess what! You’re not the only one who has felt this way! And, I have some strategies that will help.

Before The Event
Before you travel to the event, make a plan. How will you capture the things you want to work on later?

Decide how you will immediately capture those things so you have them all in one spot and won’t have to spend time looking for them. And don’t plan to write the things you want to do later in the margins of your handout.

Instead try one of these methods:

• A small notebook or pad of paper
• Small two-inch sticky notes that you stick into a notebook (one sticky note per idea)

In the past I’ve written the things for later in the margins. Then I forgot about it or missed it when I was reviewing the hand out later. And that’s if I reviewed the handouts later. So, by capturing them outside the handouts, you’ll have everything in one place.

During The Event
So, now you’re at the event with your plan.

• Immediately jot those ideas, projects and tasks (things you want to work on later) into your notebook or onto a sticky note
• At the end of each day go through your handouts and add anything that got missed or you want to review again later

Sometimes it’s helpful to put down the page of the handout that your idea came from. Or to make a note of the pages you want to review in more detail later.

After The Event
If you’re anything like me, you have a lot of things you want to work on after the event.

1. Pick the top one or two things that you want to complete
2. Make a list of the daily and weekly things you do (it’s easy to forget about those things in the excitement of your newly created tasks).
3. Estimate how long each task from the event will take to complete
4. Prioritize your tasks from the event
   1. The tasks from step 1 are your highest priority
   2. Not all of the things you wrote down will be appropriate for where you are right now. Yes, it’s probably a great idea, but it might not be the best use of your time.
   3. The things that you can do quickly and will have the greatest impact area a higher priority.
5. Divide the tasks from the event into three categories
   1. Do it this week
   2. Do it in the next month
   3. Do it later
6. Plan the tasks for this week.
   1. This means give each “this week” task a day it will get done. You’ll probably need to go back to step 3 and move some of this week’s tasks to one of the other categories
   2. Don’t forget that those daily and weekly things from before the event are important too! Leave time for them.
7. At the end of the week repeat the steps! It should go a bit faster because you’ve already done some of the work!

Breaking up your event tasks so you know what’s important now and what can be done later will help with some of that overwhelmed feeling. If you still need a little help with it check out these two blog posts: Are You Still Feeling Overwhelmed and Time Management Observations.

What would you add to the above lists?

Last week I wrote about feeling overwhelmed and some steps to go through to work through it. The example I gave was finding a productivity system that works for you, but it can work for anything. So, were you feeling overwhelmed? Did you go through those steps? One more question – are you still feeling overwhelmed?

If not, GREAT! You don’t need to read on (but feel free to anyway)!

If you ARE still feeling overwhelmed – it’s okay! You’re not alone and you’ll want to read on.

So, you’ve gone through the eight steps in the previous post and you’re still feeling overwhelmed, right? You’re still busy and working through those steps just adds more things to your to-do list.

Here’s a hard question for you: What are you willing to give up? I’m serious. If you’re feeling completely overwhelmed with everything that you have going on in your life right now then it’s time to review and decide what you’re willing to give up.

I warned you that it was a hard question.

Some other ways to ask the same question:

• What are you willing to stop doing?
• What are you willing to delegate?
• Where can you ask for help?

Really think about these questions and answer them truthfully. If you’re feeling overwhelmed (and especially if you have for a while) then it’s time for something to change.

A couple weeks ago, I asked myself “What am I willing to give up?” In the previous post I mentioned wanting the day to be longer so I could get a few more things done. So, when I asked myself that question I took a look at how I was spending my time. Well, I’m a big fan of YouTube – I am subscribed to quite a few channels and keep up with all their latest videos. I probably spent 30-60 minutes a day watching videos. So, I gave up YouTube and I won’t get it back until I meet a specific goal. This was kind of a big deal for me and I committed to it (this put two to five hours back into each week). I even had my husband block YouTube so it won’t even load on any computer in the house.

Do I occasionally miss some of those YouTube channels? YES, but that extra time is worth a lot more to me.

Now, I want to be clear – This isn’t about giving up your personal time to free up more time for work or other things. Watching YouTube wasn’t quality personal time for me, it was a distraction in my work day that I liked, but didn’t love.

Another way to think about it is what do I spend a lot of time doing that is important, but not a high priority or is something that someone else could do?

Take a deep breath or go for a quick walk or do something else that brings you a sense of calm and ask yourself those questions.

Two more questions: What is not changing things costing you now? What will it cost you later?

Overwhelm is something we’ve all experienced and a couple weeks ago I was feeling very overwhelmed. I had a long list of goals and tasks to accomplish and the limit of 24 hours a day to work with. It really would have helped if I could have made the day a few hours longer.  Since that wasn’t going to happen I needed to figure something else out.

I have a habit of not writing down small tasks that I want to do – the under 10 minute ones. I keep them in my head. When there’s only a couple of them this works out fine, but when there’s several – well, let’s just say my track record is not so good with that. Part of feeling overwhelmed was that I had several of these small tasks floating around in my head.

I have lots of other criteria that went into my solution, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I’ve found a combination of things that work for me. And if I find something is not working out – I’ll tweak and modify some more. This process took place over the course of a couple of days and it’s a time commitment that will pay dividends!

What helps you stay away from feeling overwhelmed?