Overwhelmed? Break It Down (Before You Break Down)
Like so much of my coaching work, this post was inspired by my own experience. I don’t know about you, but I frequently and easily get overwhelmed by my “to do” list. It often feels like as soon as I cross everything off, it fills right back up with more things that need to get done! That feeling of overwhelm, coupled with the exhaustion inherent in our capitalist system, is a recipe for… you guessed it… procrastination! And so we enter the vicious cycle of procrastinating because we feel stressed and then feeling even more stressed because we’ve procrastinated. So how do we get ourselves out of this tailspin?
Well, there’s one tool that has helped me time and time again, and I’m excited to share it with you today. I don’t have a catchy name for it, at least not yet, but essentially it’s taking one project that feels too big to tackle, and breaking it down into more tangible tasks. If you find yourself thinking or saying, “I don’t even know where to start,” that project is good candidate for this method. Let’s use an IRL example from my life to explore how to apply it!
Pick One Overwhelming Project
First things first, if you have several things on your list that make your head spin, you need to pick one of them to focus on. Decide which one is most urgent, most important, or will have the biggest impact, and focus your energy there. Trying to do too many things at once is how we got here in the first place, am I right?
I recently returned from a two week road trip to Montana in my new truck camper. When I came back home I exploded all my gear into a pile on the garage floor. Between my pile and my roommate’s climbing gear from a recent Yosemite trip, it looks like an REI threw up all over the place! I’ve been procrastinating dealing with it, but decided that today was the today. While “clean garage/gear” seems like one thing on the to-do list, it’s actually about 20 little things rolled into one. This task definitely fit into the “I don’t even know where to start” category.
How to Break It Down
The first step is to grab something to write on. When I’m using this method for working on a team project at work, I’ll often write my list out on a big piece of cardboard, but for a small or solo project, a piece of paper or notebook will work just fine.
The key here is get really granular. Imagine you’re explaining how to do something to someone who’s never done it before. For example if you were telling someone how to clean a refrigerator, you wouldn’t just say “clean the fridge.” You’d have to be explicit about each step involved. Here is an example of how you might break down that project into smaller tasks:
remove the contents of the refrigerator
throw away any spoiled food
take out and wash shelves/drawers
spray and wipe down inside of fridge
replace shelves/drawers
put food back in
wash reusable containers from tossed food
Is this starting to make sense? It may seem like a waste of time to get so detailed, but if your brain is overwhelmed to the point of inaction, give it a try. Honestly sometimes even making this list can feel like it’s adding to the stress, but stick with it! The magic happens when you get to the doing part of this exercise.
Here’s the actual list I made when I was tackling my gear pile in the garage:
put Good Eggs boxes out front
wipe out Dometic fridge
put away backpacking clothes
charge Goal Zero battery
bring dishes upstairs
wash dishes
deflate and roll up sleeping pad
organize camp kitchen tote
empty out water jugs
clean out misc basket
put backpacking gear in tote
air out and put away wool blanket
put everything else back on shelves
sweep floor
Some of the tasks took longer to write down than I spent doing them, but organizing my thoughts beforehand helps me so much that it’s worth a little bit of redundancy. The first couple times you try this, you may have to gently shush the inner voice that tells you this level of detail is unnecessary. Do you know how to clean a refrigerator? Of course you do! Then why do you need to write all this down? Because you are trying to hack your brain by taking as much of the thinking part out of the doing part. And as a bonus you can have a little dopamine hit each time you cross something off the list. You know, as a treat.
Doing the Dang Thing
So now that the thinking part is finished, it’s time to get to the doing part. The key is to focus on one thing at a time, and cross things off as you go. While you’re doing one line item, don’t even think about any of the other ones until that one is done. Listening to a podcast or audiobook can help with this, if that’s something you’re into. Personally, I like podcasts for shorter 1-2 hour tasks and audiobooks for day-long or multi-day projects.
For longer projects, I highly recommend scheduling in break time. If you have 6 hours of work to do, consider scheduling out the work in 2 hour bursts with hour-long breaks in between for meals, rest, or or just plain fucking off. If you find your mind starting to wander toward what’s happening on Instagram or looking up some obscure fact you heard on the latest episode of This American Life, promise yourself you can spend time on it during your next break. I usually use a modified version of the Pomodoro Technique, which I’ll cover in a later post.
Making Things Suck Less
Before you get started, it can be worth putting a little effort into making the space you’ll be working in a little more pleasant. For the garage project, I put on clean clothes, opened up the garage door for some airflow and natural light, brewed a fresh cup of coffee, and queued up an episode of Radiolab. Here are a few ideas of things you can do to make an unpleasant task more tolerable:
put on a playlist that sets the right mood (relaxing, energizing, etc.)
light a candle or some incense
open a window or door to get some fresh air
download an audiobook/podcast on the topic you’re working on (e.g. gardening)
call a friend and chat during a repetitive task like weeding or folding laundry
grab a warm/cold beverage (or promise yourself one afterward!)
gamify the activity by timing yourself
ask a friend to help
put on headphones with your favorite dance jams
consider your senses: what sight/sound/smell/touch/taste would be soothing/motivating?
Still Feeling Overwhelmed?
First of all, deep breath. Take a moment to give yourself some compassion. It make SENSE that you’re struggling. Adulting is HARD. Perhaps you can’t complete a task from start to finish today but you can bite off a piece or two. I’ll often grab a highlighter and mark 2-3 things that are either the most urgent or will have the most impact. Or sometimes if I’m really not feeling it I’ll highlight everything on the list that will take 5 minutes or less and just get a few easy wins under my belt. If you’re working with a team, use a couple different highlighters and designate a color for each person!
Still having trouble prioritizing tasks or taking action? I’d love to work with you to sort out what’s important to you, why that is, and how to make it happen.
If you think coaching might help but you’re not quite sure it’s for you, I offer free 30 minute consultations where you can ask questions and/or experience a sample session.