Three Strategies to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

It starts out slowly; a missed deadline here, an unexpected project there, and then a growing pile of items needing attention. Before you know it, time and your schedule have gotten away from you. Not only does this affect your productivity, but it also begins to erode away at your mindset and confidence. Self doubt and negative thoughts begin creeping in. This only compounds the problem, increases the feeling of overwhelm, and leaves you stuck with NOTHING getting done. What's a girl to do?

This is a common occurrence but it doesn't have to completely pull you off track. Here are three strategies you can use to stop feeling overwhelmed:

1) Pick just 3 things that MUST get done today and work on those
If you are like me and the majority of my clients, you have a list of things to do that is as long as your arm. Writing it all down can be good for getting it out of your head so you don’t feel like you need to remember it. However, that in itself can cause feelings of overwhelm. So, instead of looking at that long list every time you sit down to work, select the THREE key items that MUST be done today and set the rest of the list aside. If you complete them, then you can go back to the laundry list of to-do's and select another item.
This will help with your ability to focus AND create a sense of accomplishment as you check them off.

2) Tie your values to what you are doing
When there are multiple competing to-do's, prioritization is essential. But how do you prioritize things that feel of equal importance. Well, you utilize your values. Look at each task or project and identify what key values you have that will be honored or expressed by each. The items that honor more values or perhaps your higher values should have greater importance than the others.

My client "Sally" had some exciting business goals she was striving for this summer AND she set an important goal of spending quality time with her two teenage children who were heading off to college (one for the first time). She wanted to send them off on their next chapter of life with a bang. She also added some new services to her business that she was also launching. Just to make things extra interesting several family challenges also came up. Sally was feeling a bit overwhelmed and behind on her goals, but as she reviewed her progress and what she had accomplished she shared this:

"I feel like I have lost momentum and focus on most of my goals [the last couple of months]. When I reviewed my list …the one goal I did not drop was to spend as much time as possible with my kids before they left for college and to get things ready for the big graduation party. Realizing this made me feel good, because I kept my priority on my kids and family."

Sally achieved several of her business goals, but not all of them and was feeling a bit bad and overwhelmed about it until she really looked at what was most important to her. The goal she set around her family scored highest on her values list and as such garnered more of her time.
Know WHY you are doing something and do the things that honor your core values first!

3) F.O.C.U.S.
A couple years back I heard a speaker who used the word focus as an acronym for Follow One Course Until Successful. I thought that was brilliant! We are often a society of multi-taskers, hey, I've tried on more than one occasion to get more done that way, but it doesn’t generally work. Instead, of trying to multitask on two or three things (including reading e-mail) and not get much accomplished spending 30 - 60 FOCUSED minutes on a task. You'll be much more effective. You may also find that things take less time to get done!