š¦ Overwhelm is a Warning Sign. Here's a Simple Solution.
If you donāt plan your day, someone else will.
š¬ Quotes
āYou canāt calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will passā ā Timber Hawkeye
The Overwhelm
I hear it a lot from the knowledge workers I work with.
Itās a common experience.
It happens when an individual feels the demands of their job exceed their ability to cope.
Several factors can contribute to this:
Workload
Complexity of Tasks
Unclear Expectations
Lack of Control
Inadequate Resources
Lack of Work-Life Balance
Distractions (Iām sure youāll find this is the big one!)
Perfectionism
Unexpected Challenges
Google Trends shows an upward trend in online mentions of āoverwhelmedā.
How to Cope?
Youāll read about various strategies. Theyāre probably a combination of:
time management,
setting priorities,
effective communication,
ensuring mastery,
seeking support,
developing resilience,
providing a supportive work environment,
setting clear expectations,
assigning resources to help.
Hereās What Iāve Learnt To Do - And It Works
The solution Iāve found is to time block.
Some time ago we had a worker who was regularly getting teary about the volume of work that was piling up in her in-tray and just couldnāt see her way out of it.
The Team Leader, instead of helping out with the work, sat with the worker and showed her some magic.
The magic was called āschedulingā.
The TL set a daily cycle of activities that the worker needed to focus on at different times of the day.
First look at this (45 minutes)
Then review this (30 minutes)
Then update this (15 minutes)
Then action these things (60 minutes)
Now check on these (30 minutes)
Lunchtime
Repeat 1-5 above.
There needs to be an understanding that not all tasks will get done within each allotted time block. That depends on prioritisation.
Sure, things interrupt and interfere.
But if you have a schedule, itās amazing how the interruptions seem to dissolve.
And stuff gets done.
If the schedule is validated with the boss, then the boss is also unlikely to be a cause of those interruptions.
Share your time-boxed schedule with others - even get others in sync with you - and the feeling of overwhelm will start to dissolve.
Be Prepared to Accept Different Schedules
It could be that youāll need a different schedule on Monday to that of Tuesday, or Wednesday. Thatās fine.
It could be the schedule is a weekly thing, not a daily thing. Some jobs are like that. A Friday schedule is quite different for me than a Wednesday schedule.
If you donāt plan your day, someone else will. Thatās when the overwhelm kicks in again.
Thatās all for this week. Hope it helps.