A Guide to Cutting Back When You Feel Overwhelmed

There is more to life than increasing its speed. – Gandhi There are days in everyone’s life when they feel overwhelmed by the stresses and tasks and projects and phone calls and emails that weigh upon them. Yes, even the minimalists like me get overwhelmed from time to time. How do you deal with it? There are many ways, of course, from eating and smoking and drinking to exercise and meditation and more. My recommendation: Cut back. Simplify. De-load. Why We Get Overwhelmed I think the tendency for most of us is to say “yes” to most of the things coming into our lives. Maybe it’s that we’re too nice to say no. Maybe it’s that we are overly optimistic about how much we can get done. Maybe we don’t want to look bad by saying we can’t do something. Or maybe we’re afraid to miss out on opportunities by saying no. Saying “no” to any commitments we can’t handle would be ideal, of course, but like I said, we usually have a tendency to say “yes” to more than we can actually handle. And we become overwhelmed, stressed, and exhausted. As you know, simplicity is the key to my philosophy. If things get complicated, I say you should simplify. Don’t try to do more. Reduce. The Effects of Stress and Overload We all know that too much stress is bad for us. Sure, you can’t avoid stress completely, and without some stress we would never grow. But too much stress? It leads to problems. Stress leads to many health problems, for example: headaches, muscle aches in your shoulders, neck, back … it ages you prematurely, leads to ulcers, heartburn, high blood pressure, heart disease, overeating and more. Not a pretty picture. But there’s more. Overloading yourself also leads to decreased effectiveness. Taking on too much means we don’t do as good a job with the work we attempt. We often switch between tasks, jumping from one to another, so that we actually take longer to do things and often don’t complete tasks. Or we’re so rushed with the tasks we do complete that quality suffers. I submit that doing less makes you more effective, and thus more productive. It’s worked for me, at least. I have a tendency to slash things off my to-do list, to cut back on my projects when I feel overwhelmed. The result? I’m less stressed, and I actually complete projects — from my ebook to this blog to projects at my day job to new projects I’m finishing up … I’ve been getting very good at knocking out the 2-3 projects I have on my plate at any given time. Coping with Stress There are many ways to cope with stress, as I mentioned above. Not all of these methods are created equally: Negative coping: Some of the more common methods of coping with stress and overload include eating, smoking, drinking, and shopping. We’ve all done it, so I’m not judging, but I view these things as negative coping. Again, I’ve done all four (as well as others), so I know that they can feel like you’re really de-stressing … but in fact, they can actually lead to more stress. Eating, smoking and drinking, if overdone, are unhealthy … and when you do something unhealthy, that’s stressful to your body. Shopping is bad for you financially (again, if overdone) and that leads to financial stress. While these things can give you temporary relief, they are not good in the long run. Positive coping: These are things I always recommend — exercise, relaxation techniques, Yoga and meditation, taking a hot bath. These lead to less stress, and you should do them every time you get stressed. I replaced smoking with running, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done. Reducing the stress: Even better than the positive coping methods, of course, is reducing stress at the source. What is stressing you out? See if you can reduce that source of stress. For this article, we’re going to assume that it’s your workload, whether that’s personal or business work. And the way to reduce that source of stress is to...