Dealing with Overwhelm: When the To-Do List Becomes Intimidating
No matter how organized or on top of things one is, there will come a day, a week, maybe even a month, where you feel like your scrambling and barely keeping your head above water.
Sometimes these periods of time—while stressful and uncomfortable—can be very cleansing. They force you to focus on what’s important and leave you no choice but to let the things that don’t support you slide away. Often, however, you’re left exhausted and struggling, trying to figure out which things are the most important things, and triaging them. Inevitably, tasks will pile up.
If you’re a list maker, like I am—it’s genetic, Lyons Make Lists, and we will teach you the joys of listing if you don’t—often this visually manifests as a continual moving of tasks from one day’s list to the next day’s list. As much as I love lists, when I don’t cross off nearly as much as I’m moving over, it just makes me anxious. After a few days of stress, I find that the list itself can be paralyzing. Even the simplest tasks somehow grow into something onerous once they’ve been hanging around for a couple of days. It becomes a difficult cycle to break free from.
I had a hectic weekend last weekend. Although some of it was fun, the end result was that I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted. No big deal, there’s always Monday, right? Well, this past Monday was a shit show. I was even further behind by the time I got to bed that night. I literally just recycled the same to-do list from Monday to Tuesday. By Wednesday all I had managed to do was grow it. It was like an UNO game where you keep picking up all the cards. It was to the point where even my ‘top priority’ projects were getting shunted to the next day’s list. And it was stressing me out.
Finally, I looked at the list and told myself, “just pick anything on there, something easy.” I ended up getting two of the smaller things crossed off immediately. The momentum gave my the impetus to do one of my priority tasks, which was easier and took less time than I thought it would. After that, the list got easier and easier. I managed to get the whole thing completed by the time I went to bed (on time!) Wednesday night.
Although this works well with lists, I think the concept can be extrapolated to most situations regarding overwhelm. Often when we’re overwhelmed, we freeze or procrastinate (or choose your own less-than-desirable panic reaction) and forget the easiest way out: start small.
Sometimes a relaxing bubble bath can do wonders also.
Throw a load of laundry in the washing machine, make the bed, clean off your desk. Easy things that take care of your space are good ways to jump start your mind out of overwhelm. Even if you have to exist in a stressful pocket for days at a time. Yes, the big important things are there, and they probably need to be done, but if they’re looming, just start small.
Getting something done is better than absolutely nothing, it will make you feel better about yourself, and give you a bit of confidence and momentum to tackle the bigger things. Finish a small thing and still not ready for the big one? Keep doing the small ones. Then move to the medium ones. Just one foot in front of the other and eventually you’ll get it all done.