The Overwhelm Sucks ...
To me, overwhelm feels like being stuck in winter and spring seems like it will never arrive. It always does (albeit somewhat later than I’d generally like).
Are you someone who completes your work early and doesn’t stress about quickly approaching deadlines? Or do you find yourself sliding into home as the catcher swings his glove above you and just get it done in the nick of time? Do you have tons of motivation or do you find it hard to get started? Do you have all your tasks neatly organized, prioritized and allocated according to time? Or do you suffer from overwhelm and procrastination? Or perhaps, are you a combination of all of the above?
I think it’s safe to assume that most of us suffer from procrastination, prioritization and completion challenges from time to time at a minimum. While I like to think of myself as someone who gets stuff done and who has an amazing organizational system; a type A control freak who just gets.things.done. In many ways, I am this person (even outside my head), but in other ways, I suffer from procrastination and motivation challenges a ton too.
What I thought I’d share is some of the systems, concepts and elements that help me overcome procrastination, prioritize tasks and frankly, just cope with all of it.
Eat the Frog
In his book, Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy references a Mark Twain quote:
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
Tracy then extrapolates that concept to productivity by equating the biggest, most gnarly task you need to do as your frog and gives the advice to do that task first thing. Often this task is the one you are dreading most and by accomplishing it first (or at a minimum, tackling an aspect of it), you’ve gotten past the thing you dread the most and then everything else seems easier.
You can read more about Brian Tracy here.
Eisenhower Box
The Eisenhower Box is a great prioritization tool to help you decide the most pressing items to focus on. Using a 4 quadrant system, you ask yourself about the urgency and importance of each task.
Urgent & Important tasks should be done now.
Urgent, but not important tasks should be delegated (who else can do these)
Not Urgent, but Important tasks should be scheduled
Not Urgent and Not Important tasks should be eliminated or deleted.
The challenge is many of us spend a decent amount of time on not urgent/not important tasks. The mundane stuff that sucks our time but doesn’t give us a ton of return. As well, we tend to think everything is important, so really challenge yourself when determining a task’s importance.
I created a template of the Eisenhower Box for you.
Top Priorities
Do you take time at the beginning of your day to choose the top 1-3 priority items? Or do you just work your way through your list from the top? Do you have quarterly goals? Are you spending time working on those, or do you run out of time because you are focusing on tasks without prioritizing them first?
For your top priorities, do you allocate time in your calendar for them? Your calendar is a powerful tool, but it is often controlled by outside forces, rather than by you. If you don’t allocate time in your calendar for your priorities, then other people will book meetings or ask for your time and you’ll find yourself feeling like you don’t have time for what you need to accomplish. For recurring tasks, add time into your calendar. My Monday Morning Planning Routine is a recurring meeting from 8:30 – 9:30 am every Monday morning. Since it’s in my calendar, I can see it and I (almost) never book meetings over top of that time. I try to block one hour a week to watch a webinar or TED Talk too. I used to have it on my weekly list, but I never actually got to it, so I started creating an appointment so I knew how and when I was doing it (and to avoid further procrastination, I put the link to the webinar or TED Talk I want to watch right in the calendar notes).
Delete Tasks
I keep a weekly task list and as part of my Monday Morning Planning Routine, I look at what I accomplished and what is still outstanding. If I didn’t finish a task, I’ll ask myself how important it really is (cue Eisenhower Box) and am I willing to commit to do it this week (and possibly even schedule the time for it)? If the answer is yes, I’ll let myself write it on the list for the new week. If I still don’t accomplish it that week then I need to schedule the time or delete it (otherwise, tasks will carry forward for weeks at a time). I will admit, that this process is still a work in progress, but I’m getting better.
Own Your Calendar
I mentioned this above, but schedule tasks into your calendar. You can block time for major priorities, but also, schedule smaller tasks too (I often schedule an hour and call it “Small Crap” so that I have a block of time to hack off all those small tasks I need to do but don’t manage to fit in otherwise). Part of doing this, however, involves honouring the time for those scheduled appointments. So, if you schedule “write blog post” from 1-2 pm on Monday, then regardless of what you are in the middle of at 1:00 pm on Monday, you put it aside and work on the scheduled task. Otherwise, the calendar schedule doesn’t actually mean anything. It can be really hard to stop something you may be in the middle of, and start something else, but surprisingly, this can work quite successfully. As well, build in buffer times between tasks or meetings. With many people working remotely, we tend to schedule meetings back to back as we just need to end one virtual meeting and jump on another, but we really do need downtime throughout the day in order to maintain focus.
Fifteen Minutes
Years ago, I followed Flylady and while I found her email reminders overwhelming, I loved her concept of “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Often we think that we need to devote a huge chunk of time to something, but break it down into fifteen minute chunks. Or tell yourself, “I only need to do this for 15 minutes” and you can even set a timer. At the end of the time block, ask yourself if you want to continue. Most times when I do this, I’m in the groove by the time the timer rings and I keep plugging along. It’s getting started that is the hardest; I often make the task so big in my mind, I find myself somewhat paralyzed and unable to sort out where to start, so I avoid just starting. Somehow giving myself permission to stop after a defined amount of time reduces the overwhelm of starting.
There are whole books on productivity and time management; there are probably whole sections of books (check out my Book Reviews and Resources for some of my favorites). Starting can be overwhelming. Although I swore to my high school Physics teacher that I’d never actually use Physics (never say never), we can draw back to Newton’s First Law of Motion:
An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion (at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force). While science purists would argue that his law does not pertain to procrastination, I still like to draw the parallel. When we are overwhelmed and procrastinating, we are at rest. We need a force of some kind to push us into motion. The suggestions above are some of the forces you can draw upon to get you moving. And once you are moving, hopefully you stay (mostly) moving. Starting is often the hardest part.
Resist the temptation to try all of these things at once. Pick one or two and give them a go. If they work, great, add them to your toolbox. If they don’t, then that’s OK, choose another one and practice it for awhile. It’s not about perfection; just start with something!
The rather large irony of this blog post is that I totally procrastinated writing it. I generally post Tuesday mornings and by Monday afternoon, I hadn’t even started it. But I blocked time and prioritized it for Monday afternoon and got it done. So, while I do use each of the techniques I listed above, I still struggle sometimes too. I just wanted to be real with you.
