Being Point

Tag: prioritization

  • Reduce Overwhelm By Doing What’s In Front Of You First

    A wonderfully accomplished client and I today discussed a useful strategy for dealing with overwhelm at work.  Do what’s in front of you, and put the the rest on hold for now.

    This approach is called compartmentalization in psychological terms: to create a way of thinking that effectively walls off some areas from others. In moderation, this can be a useful strategy.

    Here’s how to compartmentalize in a very practical way: Write down the top three things you want to accomplish each day – and then stick to them. At the end of a week, you’ll have accomplished somewhere close to 15 of the most important things.

    Fundamental to the approach is to put the other items on hold while you work on your top three priorities. That doesn’t mean to avoid doing the others, but simply to work on what’s in front of you that you have decided is the most important. Working on what’s most important and minimizing the distraction of worry about other things is a process that almost always enhances productivity and reduces overwhelm.

    Give this strategy a try for a few days. It’s not perfect, but it definitely helps.

  • How Do You Manage Yourself When Your Capacity Feels Overwhelmed?

    What have been your best strategies for dealing with overwhelm when your capacity has felt overburdened? Tougher times like these can test anyone’s resolve and ability to pull through.

    One of the ways to deal with taking on too much is to remove what is not mission critical. Make a list of any activity that is not directly contributing to your health and well-being in any area of your personal and professional life. Then prioritize by grouping A, B and C all of the activities – and systematically eliminate as many of the C’s as you can.

    Feelings of overwhelm can feed on each other, so it’s useful to avoid “piling on” and making a case for feeling even more stressed and overwhelmed than you felt with the first feeling.

    What strategies have worked for you? Have you ever had the experience of expanding your capacity, only to find yourself overwhelmed again? What underlies that dynamic?