How To Overcome Overwhelm in 3 Simple Steps
If you’d like to know how to overcome overwhelm in 3 simple steps, read on.
Have you ever sat down at your desk, turned on your computer and stared at it blankly for ages?
Or perhaps you’ve walked into a room with all intentions of tidying it up, only to take one look and then promptly turn around and headed straight back out?
If you’ve ever found yourself
- Feeling like you have so much to do but don’t know where to start
- Having irrational thoughts or overreacting to minor situations
- Withdrawing and/or avoiding other people
- Feeling confused or paralysed by not knowing what you have to do and procrastinating or
- Doing everything other than what you’re supposed to be doing…
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Being in a state of overwhelm is something that can happen to anyone.
It can occur as a result of an event out of the blue or when things slowly pile up and you have so much on that even thinking about it makes you want to run away or cry.
And instead of facing it and tackling it head-on, the path of least resistance is to avoid it and put it in the “too hard” basket.
When that happens, unfortunately for many people, it then can then start to gnaw at you, and you may feel disappointed, discouraged or even guilty about what you haven’t done.
The problem with this is that it becomes a downward emotional spiral.
And the worse you feel, the more it piles up and the harder it is to switch gears and see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The good news is I have developed a simple 3-step sequence to help you get unstuck so you can move forwards, become more productive and keep on top of everything.
How To Overcome Overwhelm with the S.E.E. System
For this exercise, you will need pen and paper, a Word document or similar – I like to use an Excel spreadsheet.
Step 1: SORT
In this step, the aim of the game is to get everything out of your head as quickly as possible.
By doing this, you can free up your brain power to make crucial decisions that help you to take action and create the needed momentum towards what you want.
Don’t worry about what order it comes out in or what comes out. Just record it all down as it comes out.
Ideally, you can do this for everything in life, or if you are working on a project, focus only on what you need for that task.
Think of it as a massive brain dump!
Once you have done this, I encourage you to look at the list and separate them into two columns.
Column 1 is – What I Need To Do.
Column 2 – What I THINK (But Don’t Need) To Do. These are often tasks that can be outsourced or ideas that you have been entertaining that are no longer relevant.
Once you know what you don’t need to do, you can let go of it! 🙂
Step 2: EVALUATE
This step is all about starting to bring order into your brain dump in column 1 (what you need to do).
If you are creating a massive list of everything in your life, I recommend categorising them into work, personal, phone calls, payments to be made, emails to be sent etc.
By creating tasks that are similar in nature, you can batch your time and become more efficient.
You can also use this step to put things into order of what needs to be finished before moving on to the next step (E.g. if you are focusing on one project).
Step 3: EXECUTE
Step 3 is crucial because, in this step, we start to put timelines into place and become more organised.
Placing a date on tasks will help you to focus on the next step rather than the entire journey. This helps you to break it down into bite-sized chunks.
This will assist you to become even more focused and on track to achieving what you desire.
The final piece in this simple 3 step system is about picking the first three things you need to do. When you do this, it gives your brain precise instructions on what to do next.
ACTION IS THE ANTIDOTE TO OVERWHELM
Please do not underestimate the simplicity of this system. It’s simple because it works.
Overwhelm occurs because your brain cannot process what it needs to do next.
And when a task is too big – for example “develop a website” – when it’s broken down into small simple steps – for example –
- Come up with a name for your website
- Purchase domain name
- Purchase hosting
- Book a photographer for portraits
- Write copy for your home page
- Write copy for your about us page etc
It makes it much easier to comprehend and achieve. The key here is to break it down into SMALL ACTIONABLE STEPS.
Once you have completed these three steps, you might be asking yourself… “what now”?
My suggestion would be to keep this list handy, and every time you think of more things to do, update it and cross off things that you have completed.
Using an Excel spreadsheet can make it super easy to keep on track of the top three actions you need to take (sort by date) rather than the entire list.
If a task seems too ambiguous, you can use the same S.E.E. System to break it down again even further.
Using this S.E.E. System is one of the quickest ways I know to help you overcome overwhelm.
However, you must keep up the momentum and keep taking action, because action is the antidote to overwhelm.
To learn how to overcome overwhelm and be supported through this process, you can book a strategy call with me today.
