How to Deal With Being Overwhelmed at Work 2
WOWNDADI is on top of the world. Well, Alltop specifically, sitting on the alltop lifehacks page, together with some familiar names.
Not everyone is feeling on top of the world though. Apparently the UK has a crisis of management, with a lack of people with the skills to motivate and manage staff. It probably isn’t a surprise that one of the most popular posts here is “How to deal with being overwhelmed at work.” – perhaps a little of Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of the Start” might be an antidote: Guy Kawasaki – The Art of the Start
Alltop reminds me of a great technique for dealing with overwhelm: The at-a-glance tool. Alltop gives an at-a-glance view of the best sites on a particular topic. That overwhelmed feeling comes more from what you don’t know, than what you do. The feeling that not everything is on the the RADAR at once, that more is lurking on page 2, 3, 4, … An at-a-glance tool lets you know you’ve got it all in sight.
GTD is also an excellent at-a-glance tool. Yes, there are multiple to do lists (it is a good thing to have buckets), but it collects everything that needs doing into one place. That gives a single view of what needs doing and the confidence that it is a complete view.
If you haven’t got that view already, start by taking a blank sheet of paper and writing down everything that needs doing. Keep going until everything you can think of is down there. Don’t be afraid. It is the first step to getting back on track, and it is going to be manageable.
Second, check out Scott Young‘s excellent post, “20 tips to survive when you’ve overloaded your schedule” – regular readers will spot familiar themes in this summary with my comments:
Stop the leaks:
- Work Your Calendar – block out time to cover your projects, to keep the excess out.
- Say No – don’t take more onto the to do list. Be firm.
- Use Your Network – get help and support, turn your network inside out.
‘Create’ more time:
- Get Up Earlier and Eliminate Time Sinks – Kill the TV, gaming and surfing. You snooze you loose.
- First Things First – always a winning strategy for productivity. Deal with the large rocks, watch out for the frogs.
- Exercise – If your workload is mental, make sure there is physical work to balance it.
Lighten the load:
- Lower Quality Thresholds – Think 80/20 or “good enough is good enough”. This isn’t the time to be a perfectionist. Next
- Explain the Situation – share the burden, although don’t fall into complaining.
- Triage and Defer – Don’t treat what will live without treatment and don’t treat the things that will die. If something isn’t going to make it, fast fail it, rather than wasting more time. If things can be deferred, defer them straight away.
Create a trusted system, like Getting Things Done, so that you can stay on top of things. Your attention is your scarcest resource, use it wisely so that you don’t go into attention bankruptcy. Control where you direct your attention, you control how you spend your time, and you will get the things done that need doing.
Good advice. A little Covey and a little Allen definitely will reduce the stresses we are under in today’s workplace. What I’ve found to be most important, is to have your system available wherever you are. I’ve found an application that provides access to my Windows computer at work, my Mac at home, and I can even carry it with me on my cell phone. I can email tasks, enter them directly, or if I’m driving simply call them into my GTD. I’ve written about my experiences in a couple of recent blog posts at http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com
Hello John. I definitely like the combination of Covey and Allen – it seems to cover all the bases.
I have moved slightly away from on-line tools, in order to have the system always with me. I use paper or a voice recorded, in combination with technology. I’m looking forward to the day when we have e-paper and I can combine the two!
Are there any other good complementary systems or techniques that go with GTD?
lots of good stuff here.
you have a new rss subscriber 😉
not sure i’m on board with 80/20 though?
Things are either right or wrong.
cheers E
Hello Eaon! The 80/20 comment was relating to the Perito principle – Probably worth a post and some more explanation of what I meant.
Maybe it is just be who spends 20% of the time polishing things that are actually ok to go.
I’ve got to say that getting up earlier has vastly improved my ability to get things done. I simply set the alarm back by 1 hour and now get up at 6am each weekday.
Since no one else I know is online, I’m able to blaze through my backlog in that hour and it’s usually the most highly productive time of the day for me.
Knowing what to do when overwhelmed or stressed is important. Doing what you know is an entirely different thing altogether.
We all know that we shouldn’t eat 500 ml of Hagen Daaz ice-cream in one go, but some of us do anyway!
Then, we start beating ourselves up for not doing what we know we should be doing. Or, doing what we know we shouldn’t be doing.
When we are stressed, we often resort to old behaviours which were established long ago to keep us ‘safe’. During a stressful event, before we are even aware of what has happened, the ‘tap’ opens and our body goes through 1,400 physical and chemical changes. Over time, this wears us out and wears us down.
Many people have techniques in place to help them deal with their stressors, but what do you do in the meantime until you can get to the safety of your couch, the beach or the gym? The best way is to activate the power of your heart and transform the stress right in the moment as it’s happening, so you aren’t contending with the side-effects, some of which can last for up to 13 hours.
A miraculous thing also begins to happen – it become easier to do what you know you should or shouldn’t be doing.
There is a Zen saying which states, “to know and not to do is the same as not to know.” When you listen to your heart you begin to really ‘know’.
There are times that we need to say no and I agree with you that we really have to stick to our list and be firm about it. I know it can surely prevent us from feeling so overwhelmed. I came across a video about how to overcome overwhelm and it’s great source of information that we can think through. http://marieforleo.com/2011/02/deal-overwhelm-free-video-workshop/