It happened again.
Sitting staring at my computer screen – I’m frozen, it’s not.
Between my work life & personal life May and June are S T U F F E D with… well, stuff.
Of course then I hear Debbie Mrazek’s voice in my head “You don’t have to be great to get started, but you do have to get started to be great!”
Overwhelm is THE productivity killer.
Having too much to do, many times leads to doing absolutely nothing – you might not be me staring at the computer screen, yet we all have our overwhelm moments.
So here is what I do to combat mine.
1. write it all down
This feels counter productive at first – writing EVERYTHING down that needs to be done, if you stopped there would probably make overwhelm worse. The key is to get a true handle on what needs to be done.
If nothing else, the feeling that I’ll forget something critical is gone because it’s all there.
Don’t stop there, 2. pick ONE thing and do it immediately!
Here are three very different ways I use to pick my ONE thing;
> easiest to finish – sometimes I look at my list and my ONE thing is a little one, something that may only take 5 or 10 minutes to complete. When it was in my head, it was worrying me and my overwhelm prevented doing anything. Now that I see it on my list, I can take action and check it as done.
> someone else is counting on me – other times I have a commitment to another person on my list. I’m not one to shirk my responsibilities and getting that thing done makes my feelings of overwhelm decrease significantly – consequently I tackle it first.
> something that will require someone else’s help – many times something on my list requires another person to do THEIR thing, that means I can take it off my plate for the moment. I do my part and pass it off, it’s not done – yet I’m done for now and feel a bit of relief.
Great job – you’re on your way, now 3. pick your TOP priority and repeat step 2.
What do you do to combat yours?
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