6 Tips To Reduce Feeling Overwhelmed In Your Work And Life

I‘ve worked in a corporate environment for many years, and I’ve seen many people who appear to be overwhelmed, tired and burned-out because they take on too much and end up suffering from the ‘too much to do / can’t stop now’ syndrome. I’ve been there myself a number of times, and without being aware of what I’m doing and putting in measures to take back control of my time and energy, I can find myself slipping back into this negative habit.

Are you also one of those people who can’t seem to stop “doing”? Do you always seem to have too much to do?

I’ve not met many people who haven’t felt overwhelmed at some point in their lives. Since it tends to feel uncomfortable, if not downright unpleasant, we tend to view it as negative and as a weakness. We quite often don’t want to admit that we’re feeling overwhelmed or to even talk about it, which can leave us feeling isolated and alone, which just makes the feeling worse. We’ll often deny we’re overwhelmed, either because we don’t know how to deal with the situation, or because we think others will look negatively at us, so we end up doing nothing about it, which only makes it worse.

Primarily, this syndrome occurs in our work life but it can carry over to our personal and family life, and it frequently does.

So, why do we do this to ourselves?

The main reason is that we can be so eager to please others and not feel like we’re letting them down, that we can take on far too much.

You might also find that you want to achieve a lot in your life, but instead of setting out plans for achieving your goals in a sensible time frame, you try to achieve too much at once.

Focusing on projects and trying to help others often begins with good intentions, but we can quickly and easily become overwhelmed if we don’t have a plan to balance our work and life.

Getting that project or task finished for your team, writing the copy for your website, starting your business, learning that new skill or responding to all those emails and messages, are all important – but having a balanced and healthy life is equally, if not more, important.

The good news is that this stressful pattern is telling you something important – it’s telling you that you need to change your lifestyle! Once you get this message, it’s easier to identify the steps that you need to take to shift out of this ‘take all work on’ behaviour, and quickly.

The following tips are helpful strategies that I’ve picked up from my experience, both in my professional and personal life. These strategies, whilst simple, can help you to reduce the feelings of being overwhelmed, so that you can refocus and make some necessary work/life balance decisions.

Tip 1: Stop what you’re doing for a few minutes and take a break. Go for a short walk, sit outside under a tree, meditate, breathe deeply, go to a movie, call a friend to have coffee and share what’s going on. This will help you to slow down all the rushing thoughts in your mind and get clear on all the tasks you’ve taken on.

Tip 2: Get a piece of paper and make two columns. In one column, list urgent things you need to do this week. In the other column, list those projects that you can delay to a later date, delegate to someone else or drop altogether. This will help you to identify where you need to, and can, spend your time and energy.

Tip 3: Eliminate all unnecessary things from your life. Do you have lots of clutter in your life? As we go through life we pick up many things, these can be both physical items and, ever increasingly, digital items. Unsubscribe from unnecessary e-mails; organise your desk, office and the rooms in your house to decrease clutter; stop attending unnecessary meetings; stop volunteering to help others unless it’s for something that you feel passionate about and gives you a sense of wellbeing. Don’t just look to clear out the things that you can see. The old saying “out of sight, out of mind” isn’t true when it comes to clutter or unresolved tasks in your life. Even though you can’t see these things, they’ll still take a lot of your mental energy until you either get rid of them or resolve them.

Tip 4: Reduce the time you spend with people who drain your energy. If you can, eliminate negative people from your life. But I recognise that you’ll have family and friends that you want to stay in touch with, or work colleagues that you can’t avoid, so instead of eliminating them from your life, try to reduce the time you spend around them. Assess the people around you. Do they support who you are? Do they only look at you to see what they can get from you? Do they raise your energy or bring it down? If they’re constantly bringing your energy down, minimise the amount of time you spend with them. This might seem like a harsh thing to say, but looking after your mental health is a priority, and negative people can have a detrimental effect on you.

Tip 5: Decide what’s most important in your life. If you want a balanced life, you’ll have to make some changes in your life to allow this to happen. Once you’ve identified what’s most important to you, you can start to identify time during your day and week which allows you to bring more of that into your life. If you haven’t identified your highest priorities in life, you’ll find that your lower priorities end up filling your day. Ensuring that your highest priorities are included in your daily life takes some time and planning, but it will be well worth the improvement in your life!

Tip 6: Take an action step today to make a change in your life! Call a friend who will support you; take a class on how to get better organised; sit down and plan your upcoming week to fit more of the things that are important to you into your daily life; or work with a coach who will support and motivate you to have a more balanced life.