Easily Overwhelmed

[m0vingon]

I've been noticing a significant pattern in my life. I often take on large projects- or I procrastinate on small projects- until they pile up and then I find myself paralyzed for a time because I'm overwhelmed.

It's a very annoying issue for me. I'd like to overcome it, but I'm finding some serious blocks when I try and determine the root of it. Stuff always gets done. I can take the necessary baby steps to either complete, delegate, or otherwise deal with the tasks. I just can't figure out why I end up in the position where I take on so much that I find myself overwhelmed, procrastinating and wasting psychic energy on stressing over what has yet to be completed.

Why do molehills grow into mountains?? I'm sure someone has personal experience with this. Please share your insight!

[Adrian]

You may find it useful to ask yourself a few questions to get to the bottom of the problem:

• Why do you say yes to take on projects you might not want to do?
• What kind of things to you procrastinate with? (TV, internet, going out, sleeping, etc.)
• What kinds of tasks/projects are you most prone to procrastinating on?

If you know why and what you're procrastinating on, you can figure out how to fix your problem fairly simply. Decrease the amount of projects that cause you the most stress and accept the projects you enjoy doing the most; cut out the things you like to procrastinate on the most. Since it's clear that you can take the steps needed to finish things, getting to the root of the problem will probably be most effective for you, because once you know why you're doing something, you can only then fix it.

Hope that helps!

[Sunnybayes]

I believe its the chosing what to do next that waste energy in your brain and causes the distress, or at least contributes to stress. The way I get over this is that in the morning I simply spend 10 - 15 minutes making my plan for the day, with the time periods that I will do the things that I need to do.

I get a notebook piece of paper, and fold it in two. On the left side I put my plan down. To start it off I write

"10:00-10:15 plan."

Sometimes I still wont be finished planning by the time 10:15 comes around (I'm juggling tones of stuff in my life right now, and my days can get complicated), so however far I've gotten, at the end of it I'll reserve another 10 minutes to plan.

I use the right side to capture the random things of life that come up, like when a teacher anounces a due date. I guess its called a bucket in "Getting Things Done". Then I just store it in my pocket. Next day I move the things from this bucket into my more permanent calendar on my computer and get a new sheet of paper out. Cal Newport describes this in his book "How to become a Straight-A Student"

You have to be pessimstic though and give yourself plenty of time to get things done so that you dont end up having to make your schedule after the slightest distraction, because you will be distracted, things always come up, you can't fully predict the future. You can always work ahead of schedule easily if things go faster than planned and feel good about doing so; but if you get behind schedule then it's a pain. You have to go through the stress of deciding what to do next while remaking your plan/time schedule. It might take a week to be able to estimate well how long things take you to complete. At first I was way too optimistic and never gave myself enough time to complete things, and I would quickly get burnt out trying to keep up with my shedule.


For huge projects, or for intense mental work, I make sure I give myself a 10 minute break every hour.

This way I never have to chose what to do next, because I've already done the trouble, and I just look at my piece of paper and see whats next and just do it and go with the flow. I never have the feeling any more that I should be doing something more important. So if I get 10 items done in a day, then that means I only have to go through the stress of deciding what to do next once instead of 10 times during the day. So I'd like to think it reduces the stress by 90%.

Also it takes energy and a while to get into the habit of actually doing this, so you will fail for a week, but if you stick with trying to do it, then it will become a habit. Like I would always lose my piece of paper, or I'd just be too lazy to plan in the morning... but I eventually made it a habit. I've saved tones of time from this habit... it also makes it alot easier to resist distractions.

[bravebluemice]

One of my greatest showcases of procrastination is when I am swamped and have too much to do for a given day. If I know I'm not going to get any free time after work, so I put off all of my work projects to make time to read some feeds, and have some coffee. Not only does this irritate my boss, but it puts me behind, so I have to work the weekend.

My accountant has a phrase he likes to tell me every year when I break to him the news that I haven't saved anything this year. He goes on a little tirade, then drops the line 'Always pay yourself first.' What he means is: Before I commit to throwing all of my money at bills, groceries, and frivolous expenditures, I should put a small sum away to save. Every paycheck, Every time.

Along with all of this personal planning, pay yourself first. Allocate an untouchable piece of the day, that can't go to anyone or any project, and is reserved for whatever activity you get the most direct pleasure from, or nothing at all. Then fill in the details around it.

I like to double this and pay myself FIRST and FOREMOST, by getting up an hour earlier, and taking my first hour of the day to meditate. This focuses all of my subconscious energy on the rest of my day. Then when my hour of meditation is over, it's down to the car for me; batteries charged, intentions focused, inspiration plugged in. By the time I get to work, I can tell my boss that several things will be on his desk by noon, I have all of the words in my head and just have to empty them onto the spreadsheets. Then when I get home, I can work on my novels, and before you know it, I run out of things on todays todo list, giving me another crack at some freetime before bed.

Good Luck,
~BraveBlueMice

[m0vingon]

Thank you all for your replies. after giving it some thought, I realize that the projects I feel overwhelmed by are most often hindered by surrounding issues. Either I've not planned appropriately before taking a project on, I don't have the right tools/information, etc, or I've hit a snag in the process that throws me off track. It's like I have to put more energy into the preamble in preparing for completion of the task so that the task itself doesn't become overwhelming.

Here's a simple example that may make my rambling clear:

Last week I bought a kitten. I decided he needed a condo or cat tree for scratching and exercise. I did some shopping around and decided that I didn't want to spend what the stores were charging for a cat condo that i could build myself for less than half the sticker price. I ran into some snags: it's too cold to work in my garage (left my vehicle outside in the -30 Celsius and now it won't start), so I had to set up an alternate work area, I ran a bit short on materials when i was doing the cutting (requires a trip to the store), and the job would be easier if I had a different type of saw that i don't want to spend the money on. Thus the partially built condo was sitting in my entryway waiting to be moved to a new workspace that I had to set up in the basement- which also required me re-arranging my storage down there.

I guess it was a classic case of poor planning. That particular project was one that I had in mind when I started this thread. I can see more clearly that better planning and preparation would have kept that project on track. It doesn't help that my habit is to waste time (TV/online/reading) as opposed to dealing with the problem. The issue really is multi-faceted and will require a lot of work to break through.

[Smarky]

Originally Posted by Sunnybayes

I believe its the chosing what to do next that waste energy in your brain and causes the distress, or at least contributes to stress.

I tend to have a problem with overwhelm too, well actually that is an understatement and I have to agree with this. I think it comes down to focus, knowing exactly what you want, exactly where you are going and what you need to do now to get there. It comes down to having a system that you can trust whatever that may be.

Lots of people will throw various systems at you for this, while it's good to take notice of them, its best you take some time to work on something that works for you. Your system may be just something you have on your head, it may be a complex computer system, it may be post it note based, it doesn't matter, it's what works for you that counts.

It just has to be something that you can trust, so that you can work on whatever you feel is best without having to worry about anything else, because that is all handled by said system.

You don't have to be super effeictive or productive or whatever, that doesn't actually always lead to things getting done. It's perfectly fine for it to be messy and mistakes to be made, as long as your moving forward, if you have that focus and you know where you would like to go and you have a system that is gonna get you there then all is good, right? You just have to have one, then you have to trust it and yourself 100%