Imagine you’re in the middle of a multi-player game of tug of war: you have a rope tied around your waist and each person pulling it in a different direction.
What’s happening to you?
If all the people on the ropes are pulling equally, you won’t go anywhere. You’ll remain in place.
This is what happens when we try to do too many things at once.
Productivity tends to follow a law of inverse relationship: the more things you put on your “to-do” list for the day, the less that gets done — especially when those tasks are creative in nature.
Overwhelm is the door to procrastination. When you feel pulled in different directions, you end up stuck: not doing anything at all.
Here are 3 steps to reset when you’re spinning in overwhelm.
Of course, step zero is to pause and breathe. Find your center so that you can implement these steps from a place of alignment.
(1) Decide on Your Top Outcome
The first step is to get clear on your most important outcome. Not your tasks, but the outcome — the result you want.
You must decide to put everything else aside to focus on this outcome — at least for the day. If it’s an outcome that will take more than one day, then you need to decide how long you’ll focus purely on this outcome.
(2) Be Discerning in Your Tasks
Once you get clear, you must be discerning. Look at all the “to-do” items on your list and discern which one will give you the greatest leverage. Which will move the needle most toward the outcome you desire?
Block time to focus on that highest leverage task for at least 2 hours of uninterrupted time. No email. No social media. No distractions.
(3) Exercise Your No
This is the hard part: as other things arise that call your attention, you must exercise your NO muscle. Become so obsessed with the outcome you’ve chosen that everything else loses its appeal. Imagine you’re saying NO to being tortured. Whatever story you need to tell yourself in order to get traction on that one outcome.
Getting traction can be the best antidote to procrastination and overwhelm. And fear not: everything else will be there when you want to return to it.
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