Lately, I have had a lot of things going on and occasionally, that’s made me feel a bit like my brain is going to just melt out of my ears. When I’m trying to keep track of multiple projects, deadlines, general life stuff, and the terrible decision of what to eat for dinner every single night, it’s super easy to get overwhelmed.
When I get overwhelmed, I mostly just shut down and can no longer decide on what to even work on. The pile of options is too big to even consider and so I make no choice and work on nothing.
It’s not exactly a brilliant strategy.
It’s the paradox of choice. The idea that when there are too many options, deciding becomes much harder and leads to disappointment.
So how do I handle this overwhelm?
Anyone who has read my blog posts before knows that I am all about lists. I’ve built into my life a once-a-week brain dump where I take 30 minutes to an hour and write out every single little thing that is on my mind as a task. Then I assign those tasks a category and a date it’s due. Here’s what it looks like:
Currently, I use a program called Ticktick and I love it. I’ve been using it for several years now, but in the past, I’ve also done bullet journaling.
The main thing has been finding a method that clicks with how I think. I think in lists and tasks. For others, this might not be helpful, so experiment around to find what’s best for you.
For me, taking that time to set out my tasks means that I’m only making that decision once, not every single day with every single task, every time a task pops up. It condenses the choosing to a specific time, which makes it all a lot less overwhelming for me.