From the course: Time Management Tips

How to deal with feeling overwhelmed

From the course: Time Management Tips

Start my 1-month free trial

How to deal with feeling overwhelmed

“

- All of us experience moments where we feel just completely overwhelmed, that there is too much to handle in life or at work and there's no way that we're going to unbury ourselves. There are two kinds of overwhelm that I see most people experience. First, is just too much stuff to do, and the second is when a major life event occurs that causes you to shift your schedule in a dramatic way. First of all let's talk about if you just have too much stuff to do. The first place I look at when someone feels overwhelmed is email. Often people just get buried by email and they don't know how to get out of it. This is when you have hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of email in your inbox. If you find yourself in a situation like that, I recommend that you pick a date in the past, perhaps 30 days ago, and declare email bankruptcy as of that date. You're not going to delete everything from that date, but you're going to power archive everything in your email inbox that is older than that date which you chose. This gives you a more reasonable space to start working yourself out of this email. The second is when you have too much to do. Perhaps you have too many things that have been put on your plate or that you put on your own plate. If you find yourself in that situation, I recommend as much as possible to either delegate or decline these kinds of activities. When I say delegate I mean ask yourself is there someone else who it's more reasonable that they do this? Often I find myself in that situation where I find myself doing something that really someone else on my team is better suited to do. They're better at it and their faster at it, and so I delegate. Also you can just occasionally decline and say I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be able to do that. Or another way to decline is to find the next window in your calendar. Use positive procrastination and find a space far off into the future and ask someone is it okay if I get it to you as late as a month from now or two months from now. If you want more help in preventing that overwhelm, I recommend you check out time management fundamentals here on the library. Now what about an event? Some significant thing that happened in your life, perhaps even a tragedy, something that completely changed your world and you feel buried because of that. In that kind of a situation the first most important thing to do is stop. Give yourself a moment to really process what has happened. Slow down and change your expectations for yourself. In a situation where you experience a major life event, it is not reasonable to expect the same level of performance, at least in the short-term. So, similar to what we did with overwhelm with stuff on your calendar, we're going to want to delegate or decline as much as possible. We want to communicate to others what you're experiencing right now in the short-term and find out a way to have them help you so that you can get back to your normal level of performance at some reasonable date in the future. Now what if that feeling of being overwhelmed is a near constant companion in your life, that you feel that even if you tried some of these suggestions I made you'd still feel like you're just buried and there's too much to do. In a situation like that I recommend that you try to make whatever positive changes you can. For instance, perhaps changing your work environment in a few ways, or exercising more. Changing your diet or even getting more sleep can have a huge impact on your daily outlook. Also, you may find that it's helpful to seek professional help in the form of a psychologist or even in medical situations a psychiatrist. I personally have benefited from both. The feeling of being overwhelmed is universal to all of us from time to time. When you have that experience stop, slow down, and give yourself some time.

Contents