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Getting out of overwhelm: 6 suggestions

We get into overwhelm when we feel there is too much to do and too little time.

That’s pretty obvious. What’s less obvious is what to do about it.

Most of us feel like there is little we can realistically do in our current circumstances.

We’ll get relief only when those change; when our sales reach a certain level; when we can hire another person; when the kids are older; when the economy gets better; when the economy slows down.

It’s true that things would be easier to manage if our lives were simpler, if the pace of change was slower and we had fewer choices to make all the time.

But there are things you can do to reduce your overwhelm. Here are a few suggestions:

• Reduce your expectations about how much you can do. Thinking you can/should/need to handle everything only puts more pressure on you, which backfires by reducing your effectiveness. Have you ever mentally worked yourself into a frenzy about a deadline and realized that you spent the last hour fretting but accomplishing nothing that you can use?

• Stop thinking that you can control things, or that you need to in order to be safe. It’s impossible to cover every eventuality. Some pre-vacation preparation and planning is wise, too much and you end up being more stressed than if you hadn’t gone at all.

• Keep your goals in mind and not because they will motivate you to work harder, but because they will help you decide what you really need to do and what can wait or be eliminated from your list.

• If you find yourself running short of time, take extra time to think about how to spend your time. Instead of running around trying to get all the items on your to-do list done, you’d be better off taking a mental break to assess what you really need to do next and focus just on that.

• This brings me to multi-tasking. It can really contribute both to overwhelm and to low effectiveness. If you multi-task make sure that all but one of the tasks can be done automatically without giving them your attention.

• Finally, the energy of overwhelm feeds on itself and can send you spinning. It’s essential to break the cycle, take a breath, and ground yourself. That alone will dramatically increase your level of energy, your presence of mind and the quality of your decisions.

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