One Magical Way To Minimize Overwhelm.
I am just going to come out and say it. Mom knows best. Specifically, my mother knows best. Growing up she regularly gave me magical advice about how to minimize the overwhelm of having too much on my plate. I’ve always been someone who has a lot going on, the phrase “her eyes are bigger than her stomach” sums me up pretty well. From the number of activities I believe should fit in a given day, to the number of friends I try to keep, to the places in the world I want to see; my eyes are too damn big for my stomach. As a kid between my perfectionist tendencies and my desire to do it all, I spent a lot of time overtaken by overwhelm. That is until my mother offered up her magical advice…..
Focus on one thing at a time.
These seemingly simple and yet powerful words hold the key to minimizing overwhelm when you have an overloaded plate. For years, multi-tasking has been glorified and revered as one of the most important skills anyone can possess. And as technology became more accessible and available many of us grew accustomed to doing many things at once. Thankfully to the popularization of the mindfulness movement, we are now coming to recognize that you can’t do many things at once if you want to do them well.
As an entrepreneur, I find myself returning to my mom’s wise words over and over again. (I even have a post it with the words “Focus On One Thing At A Time” hanging over my desk.) My plate is more full now than ever; with the sheer number of competing priorities and deadlines breeding overwhelm and as a result increasing my desire to just lay down and take a nap. So how do I keep moving forward, making progress on my deadlines and weaving these priorities into my day? By focusing on one thing at a time.
Here’s how I put magic into practice:
Plan my day the night before
Select no more than 2 high priority and 2 medium priority tasks to accomplish in any given day. (Trust me, between meetings, emails and unplanned for situations even 4 can be a lot)
Break the work down into bite sized chunks. (For example: instead of writing down “work on presentation”, the plan should specifically state “build 3 slides for presentation”)
Build in buffer time. (In the above example if I think it will take me 3 hours to create 3 slides, I allow 4 hours)
Schedule transition time and breaks. (Its been proven that our minds work best in 52 minute increments followed by 17 minutes of rest – which does not include Facebook or online shopping)
Set a timer and turn off all distractions. (I’ll write more about this magical step in a future post)
And of course I meditate.
Try it out. Comment below and let me know how it works for you!