How to Tackle Overwhelm Before it Tackles You
Overwork and overwhelm—the importance of being selective about how we spend our time and energy.
Picture This:
A joyful, balanced life where all of our personal to-do’s are complete, and we feel totally on top of how things are playing out. That’s the dream.
Unfortunately, it’s more common to hear people describe themselves as overworked, overwhelmed, and struggling.
You may have seen the below video. A college professor brings rocks, gravel, and sand to his class—each representing tasks and priorities in life. He demonstrates that the only way to fit them all in a jar is to add the big rocks (your top priorities) first.
We must be selective about what goes into the jar; otherwise, there is no space left for the essential, large rocks.
And when we have a full jar yet big rocks remaining, what happens? Stress, anxiety, even burnout. The solution in the video looks simple, so why do we keep doing it?
Why do we keep saying yes to the stress?
The inability to manage your time, plus constantly overworking, creates a working population who are pushing the needle into the red zone of constant stress, anxiety, and, yes, burnout.
Overwhelmed: How did we get here?
You may see yourself in one or more of these descriptions:
- The ‘yes’ person. Ever helpful, a team player, never wishing to disappoint. They say yes to everything, regardless of whether or not they have the capacity/time to do it. This person can also be the leader who can’t or won’t take their hands and heart out of the day-to-day and finds themselves doing the work of two.
- The procrastinator. Procrastination can be a cause or byproduct of overwhelm. The procrastinator isn’t even trying to put any rocks in the jar, preferring or being compelled to wait until the last possible second.
- The ‘I don’t care’ person has lost connection to the work’s importance, lost love for it, or both.
- The lost soul has lost sight of or was never given the big picture. S/he doesn’t understand the goal and, therefore, has no criteria for prioritizing or delegating. The lost soul usually ends up putting all its efforts into the wrong thing.
Overwhelmed: What can we do now?
The reality is that we may all find ourselves falling victim to any or all of the above. Once we know what got us here, we can better address how to dig ourselves out of our overwhelm and bring us into the full-functioning, master of time, and well-balanced individual we want to be.
The key here is who YOU want to be. These are YOUR priorities; YOU set them. Among the myriad of ‘to-do’s that get dumped on your plate, you are the master of your calendar, and you get to say what and when. In fact, you HAVE to. This is a needed skill for those who depend on you for the success of your business, organization, team, and, of course, your own health and happiness. Unfortunately, you don’t get to be bad at it. So let’s get started.
Five Steps To Prevent Overwork and Overwhelm
Follow the below steps to bring more work/life balance into your life.
1Prioritize
The ability to prioritize comes with knowledge of your job. Take the twenty things you imagine are on your plate, put them in order of importance to be done this week. The must-dos are your big rocks. The next are smaller, and so on. If you cannot determine the order of the 20 things on your plate, get help sorting this out.
2Craft a doable to-do list
You have a fixed number of hours in the work week. Pick your big rocks (the must-dos) first, and schedule them in your calendar meaningfully. Block the exact times you will dedicate to these tasks and attach outcomes to them. When you have filled your calendar, your to-do list for the week is done. DONE! If this leaves six things off your list, they are for next week. Or…
3Say "no" or delegate
Is this a task that falls under your responsibility? Where is this in order of organizational importance? Is this important to me/my work/my family?
If it is essential, then delegate. Help find someone with the capacity to take this on.Who else’s responsibility is this? Who would enjoy the work? Who could learn from the opportunity? Find this person.
If this is not enough of a priority, and you cannot find a delegate, then get comfortable saying ‘no.’ It’s hard, I get it. I’m a ‘yes’ person. Saying yes to item 15 and then not producing the result you promised is unkind. It’s unkind to yourself and to the person you promised. Be clear and kind: You are not able to take on this task.
4Control yourself
You are almost there. You have the right rocks in the jar; it can be done; now, do it. This is a no-procrastination zone. Close your door, set your Zoom/Teams to unavailable, and leave a voicemail message indicating you are unavailable to take calls. Enlist a buddy to check in on your progress. Whatever it takes to check the items off the list.
5Reward yourself
Need help overcoming overwork and overwhelm?
If you need a boost getting started, get help. We work with leaders and teams to help them get over the hump of sorting through the pile of to-do’s, trim, prioritize, and schedule so that what’s left is a clear path to success—day by day, week by week.
Book a discovery call to learn how we can help you prioritize the big rocks and say goodbye to stress.
