What to do when you are overwhelmed
I had a dream this morning. One of those anxious, nothings-working dreams. As I was waking up, The thought came: ‘they will know your mind’. In the dream, it wasn’t fully a good thing, it was a double edged sword.
I still haven’t figured it out fully, but as I was thinking it through, I got the idea for this post.
Don’t Panic
Douglas Adams had it right on the cover of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Universe. When you feel overwhelmed your body releases adrenaline and you respond with the fight or flight instinct. This is not helpful when your overwhelm is caused by a staff or customer problem! Unless there happens to be a saber toothed tiger bounding towards you, all else is manageable. This response was designed to deal with saber toothed tigers, not a mix up at the bank. Remember: you are the boss of you. You can control this.
Take a deep breath. Close your eyes, Smile. Smiling releases endorphins and makes the people around you respond by smiling. We mirror the people around us as mechanism to fit in. Again, this is a pretty ancient survival tactic. If you weren’t part of a tribe, you died.
http://www.simoleonsense.com/mimicry-how-to-influence-people-become-likeable/
Slow down
I know, it seems counter-intuitive that you need to slow down to go faster.
When you go fast, you mess up, you drop things, you make mistakes and you don’t do a good job. This means it takes longer or you end up doing it again.
When you slow down, you think it through, you get it all, in the right order and faster. Your mind opens and you are creative, brilliant and you do a great job with it.
Enjoy
Life isn’t something you get through so you can get on to the real fun. This is it. Life ain’t no dress rehearsal (I love that line). If you are not enjoying yourself, then why bother?
One of the big changes I made in my life that paid off big time, was to give myself the gift of the first hour of the day to work on whatever projects interest me. This book, blog and community is one of those projects. We all have ideas that we plan on getting to ‘once we get all this working well and under control’. I’ve got news for you, it will never be under control. Start your projects now.
Single Task
This isn’t even a question anymore.
http://zenhabits.net/how-not-to-multitask-work-simpler-and/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-saving-philosophy/201201/it-works-doing-one-thing-time
Build Capacity
This means have more resources than you need so that if something happens, you have the ability to deal with it. Sleep, health, money, people, contentment, joy, time, love.
Even your best work, the work that only you can do and that puts you into flow can’t be sustained all the time. You hit a place of diminishing returns. You get tired and depleted. You need to surround it with white space, a palate cleanser, rest.
The more you do this work, the more productive you are. Ideally you set up your life so that you do this work in several intense spurts through the day, with breaks to do other fun, yet different and productive work.
We all get overwhelmed at times. Try these tips and let us know how it went
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Please share your best tips for dealing with being overwhelmed
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