Over the weekend, someone in a business Facebook group I’m in posted about how overwhelm is not a noun and shouldn’t be used that way. Setting aside the confusion about why that happened (even this grammar stickler can handle hearing someone say they are ‘in overwhelm’), it did get me thinking about what I do when I’m feeling totally overwhelmed.
As a business owner, there’s about 186 things I could/should/want to be doing at any given moment. Not to mention, in a service-based business, there’s always a lot of client work on the go as well. Sometimes, it allllllll happens at once, which can leave you feeling totally paralysed by overwhelm.
So how do you get out of it?
When I find myself feeling totally stuck because I’m overwhelmed, I always do these 3 things to shift it:
1. clear the decks (physical and digital)
I don’t know about you, but when I’m already feeling stressed to my eyeballs, being surrounded by clutter makes it much harder to think straight, so I can’t even begin to get on top of my to-do list. So, the first step is a quick tidy up! The purpose here is to reduce distraction, so we’re not doing a deep clean. Set a timer if you have to, then do a quick whip around: tidy your workspace, pop everything back out of sight, blast through your inbox (sorting and decluttering, not doing!), and so on.
This one can feel counterintuitive – when you’ve got SO much to do, you might feel like you should be doing the work and anything else is a waste of time. I respectfully disagree, but you can skip this step if you really want to.
2. make a list
One of the problems I often encounter when there’s a lot going on is that my brain likes to keep shouting at me to not forget stuff. Like, I’ll be in the middle of building a slide deck and she’ll say “don’t forget you need to set up the automation sequence! And remember to update the sales page! And don’t forget about finding that link!” Very distracting, and it certainly doesn’t help me to feel less overwhelmed.
So, my next step is a brain dump of everything I need to do or remember. Often I do this with pen and paper, but popping it straight into Asana (or your task management tool) works well too. Once it’s safely captured somewhere my brain seems to chill out a bit and let me focus.
3. pick one thing
Just one. It doesn’t have to be the biggest thing, or the hardest thing. It just has to be something from the list – so you can dig in, get it done, and tick it off the list! Like I said before, one of the shitty things about feeling really overwhelmed is it freezes you up, leaving you to sit there, look at your ever-growing list, and feel even worse! Choosing one thing can be the reframe you need to help get you back into action.
Tell me, what do you do when you’re feeling overwhelmed? Share your tips in the comments.
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