Everything Feels Urgent — How to Stop The Overwhelm

Situation

• You're barely wrapping your head around one priority before the next one lands.

• The regular work hasn't politely stepped aside while new demands keep coming.

• Your attention jumps from one thing to the next while your brain reminds you of everything you're not doing.

• Your team is feeling the pressure too, and they're looking to you to make sense of what's happening.

• You're wondering, How am I supposed to pull this off?

In any one moment, you're doing one thing.

But in your head?

You're mentally carrying ten.

That's overwhelm.

What's Really Happening

There's having too much work, and then there's feeling overwhelmed because you have too much work.

Those aren't exactly the same thing.

Too much work is a circumstance. Overwhelm is the feeling you experience in response to that circumstance.

Think of it this way: you can have a mountain of work sitting in front of you. That's the reality.

Overwhelm is when your brain starts acting as though you have to climb the entire mountain right now.

Your brain pulls tomorrow's staffing problem into today, Friday's deadline into Tuesday morning, and the difficult conversation you haven't had yet into the meeting you're sitting in now.

Then it adds:

I have to get all of this done.

I can't disappoint anyone.

I need to handle this perfectly.

That makes a heavy load even heavier.

You may not be able to change the workload right now. But you don't have to require your brain to carry the entire workload at every moment.

What Helps

• Get it out of your head

  When everything feels urgent, take five or ten minutes and write down everything you're carrying.

  It doesn't have to be a beautiful, color-coded list. It can be ugly:

  Staffing. Call HR. Finish budget. Talk to physician. Respond to that email. Pick up dog food.

  Just get it out of your head and onto something else.

  When something is captured somewhere you trust, your brain doesn't have to keep rehearsing: Don't forget this!

  Nothing has been solved yet. But you've moved the task from I need to keep remembering this to: This is safely captured somewhere.

• Separate the task from the rule

  Your brain may be carrying more than the tasks themselves.

  It may also be carrying rules about how you're supposed to handle them:

  I should respond immediately.

  I should attend every meeting.

  I should be able to handle this myself.

  I need everyone to be happy with my decision.

  Ask yourself: What does this situation actually require, and what am I adding to it?

  Does this really need to happen today?

  Do I actually have to be the one who does it?

  Does this need to be perfect, or does it need to be good enough?

  Sometimes the task stays.

  But the rule can go.

• Stop living the whole week today

  Your brain is very good at time travel.

  You're in Tuesday morning's meeting, but mentally you're already at Friday's deadline.

  When your brain jumps ahead, ask: Do I need to deal with this right now?

  If yes, deal with it.

  If no, give it a home.

  Put it on tomorrow's list. Give it a block on your calendar. Add it to Friday's agenda. Or choose a time when you'll come back to whatever your brain keeps circling.

  You're not saying, “Don't worry.”

  You're saying: “I'm not solving that right now. I have a time when I'm coming back to it.”

  It has an appointment.

  Then come back to: What are the one or two things that need the most from me right now?

• When you're flooded, stop adding input

  When your chest tightens, your thoughts speed up, and everything suddenly feels urgent, your instinct may be: Go faster. Try harder.

  Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop.

  For five minutes.

  No email. No phone. No organizing. No leadership podcast.

  Go outside. Sit somewhere quiet. Take a short walk.

  You're not trying to solve the problem in those five minutes. You're interrupting the overwhelmed state long enough to get some of your thinking capacity back.

  Then come back and ask: Okay. What actually needs me now?

  The workload may not have changed.

  But your ability to deal with it can.

• Use clarity to see when the workload really is too much

  These practices aren't meant to help you quietly absorb an unreasonable workload.

  Sometimes, when the internal alarm quiets down, what you see more clearly is: No. This really is too much work.

  Maybe priorities need to be renegotiated. Maybe work needs to be shared. Maybe the person setting the expectation needs to understand what accepting one more priority means for everything else.

  There's an enormous difference between saying: "I'm overwhelmed. I can't do this," when everything feels impossible, and being able to say: "Here's what is possible. Here's what isn't. And here are the choices we need to make."

  That's clarity.

  And clarity gives you something overwhelm doesn't:

  Options.

  You don't have to solve Thursday on Tuesday morning. You don't have to accomplish the entire day in this hour. You just need enough clarity to know what this moment is asking of you, and enough perspective to recognize when what's being asked of you needs to change.

  One real moment at a time.

Listen to the podcast episode

🎧 Drowning In Work? 4 Proven Ways To Keep Overwhelm At Bay (Ep. 86)