When You‘re Stress Out And Overwhelmed

Podcast 206  This week’s question is about managing overwhelm and stress.   You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Download the Annual Planning Template Evernote link for the Annual Planning Template More about the Time And Life Mastery Course The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Episode 206 | Script Hello and welcome to episode 206 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show. I’ve received quite a lot of questions over the last few weeks about feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. Not just the occasional feeling, but a general, constant feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it.  If this state lasts too long it can turn into something very bad, so it is important to recognise it and take action. Nobody wants to be depressed or experience a breakdown. Fortunately, if you do recognise the signs, you can do something about it.  Now, before we get into this week’s question, I’d like to remind you that we are now almost at the halfway point of November. We have around three weeks left to brainstorm ideas about what you would like to do next year.  If you haven’t already downloaded my FREE annual Planning Template, you can do so from my downloads page on my website. carlpullein.com/downloads. This is a wonderful time of year to evaluate what you did, and didn’t do and what you would like to change and do next year.  Okay. Time to welcome back the Mystery Podcast voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Tom. Tom asks: hi Carl, every day I feel stressed out and feel helpless when I look at my to-do list. There is so much on there and I know I cannot get it all done. It feels like every day the list gets longer, not shorter and I am at my wits end about what to do. Can you help?  Hi Tom, thank you for your question and I am sorry you feel the way you do.  The first thing I am going to do is tell you to step back. You are going to fight me and tell me you don’t have time to step back, but I can promise you this is the only way you will regain some control and get on top of that to-do list.  You cannot go on doing what you are doing right now. If you do not step back, take a breath and spend some time going through that list, you are going to find your feelings of stress will continue to climb and that is not going to lead anywhere nice.  So, stop for a morning at the very least. Or if you can, take the next weekend, gather up everything in your to-do list and hide yourself away for two days while you get on top of what you need to do.  What this is going to do is to put a stop to new things coming in. You need this to breathe and to take stock of where you are with everything. Next up, do a run through your task manager and delete any task you do not need to do. You will find there will be a lot of these. We have a habit of throwing stuff in there that we would “like” to do but don’t need to do. We need to clear these out.  In the past, I’ve suggested people move these tasks to their notes app as a single note, but I realised this does not fix the problem. It only moves things from one place to another. Instead, I find if we delete these tasks, if they are important at some future date they will come back up on your radar and you can re-add them to your list.  Doing this pass through on our task manager will clear around 25% of what’s in there. You’ll also find a lot of tasks that are well past their due date and completed tasks. We need to eliminate these. Watch out for those emails you have been meaning to respond to for over a month. Sorry, but it’s too late. D