In today’s hectic world, we often deal with overwhelm. There are many reasons that this is the case from having too much on our plates, to being contantly connected, to being pulled in too many directions. Unfortunately, experiencing overwhelm is a bad situation that can get even worse. When we get overwhelmed, we become less productive which can exacerbate the problem and lead to us slowing down and making lots of mistakes.
Don’t stress, though. Here are some things that you can do to help deal with your overwhelm and enable you to become more productive:
- Identify the sources of your overwhelm. It is really useful to make a list of all the things that you feel overwehlmed about. They can be things that you experience on the job or in your personal life. Next, attach a percentage to each in terms of how much they are overwhelming you. Then, rank them.
- Find ways to reduce or eliminate the things that are causing the most overwhelm. Whatever items are at the top of your list are the things that you should start finding ways of tackling first. How can you make them more manageable or get rid of them altogether?
- Streamline and oursource tasks. Look at your daily routline. Identify some ways that you can streamline everyday tasks and outsource those that are tedious, time consuming, or that you don’t like doing.
- Declutter both physcially and mentally. Having a messy workspace can slow you down. Clean your work area, and work to get rid of any anxiety related to the things that you need to do. Taking action and creating plans can help you with this mental cleasing.
- Create daily action plans. Try to make the best use of your day by crafting action plans that optimize your productivity and make the best use of your time.
- Break larger projects into smaller chunks. If you are feeling overwhelmed by large projects or tasks that are hanging over your head, break them down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Attach a timeline to each of the chunks, and get started sooner rather than later.
- Identify 3-4 must-do items every day. Being productive helps reduce overwhelm and involves getting more done every day. First thing in the morning, identify at least 3-4 items that you want to get done that day. Write them down on a list and then cross them off one by one as you knock them out.
- Look for and eliminate time-sucks and distractions. Try to figure out what is unnecessarily wasting your time and/or distracting you. Maybe you are checking emails too frequently and it is interrurpting the time that you need for other tasks, or you are stopping what you’re doing to scroll on Instagram. Whatever it is, come up with strategies to thwart it.
- Get a handle on chores. We can get overwhelmed by work and life, but we also have lots of chores that we need to attend to as well. In order to help reduce the stress that they can cause us, we can complete the chores in chunks, outsource some if possible, and run errands at one time to improve efficiency.
- Create a new schedule. Once we’ve figured out what we can reduce, streamline, and eliminate, it’s time to make our new schedule. This new schedule will maximize our productivity and give us the most bang for our buck, or our time, in this case. We need to ensure that the new schedule includes our main priorities as well as the things that we really want to do. Additionally, we must be sure that it’s balanced and that we don’t overschedule ourselves.
Doing these 10 things can really help reduce overwhelm and change your life! So start working on tackling your overwhelm today.