Overwhelmed?

I seem to hear this a lot these days. “I’m overwhelmed.”

It’s a powerful word. According to the dictionary, overwhelm means to “drown or bury under a huge mass.”  Wikipedia goes even ever further:  “to overpower or overcome, especially with superior forces; destroy; crush.”  A softer meaning, “to give a person too much of something.”

Either way, it’s a common experience. I visit the land of Overwhelm myself too often for my taste.

It got me wondering. Is it literally because there is exponentially more stuff in life these days?  Certainly there is more information, and way more options.  More demands for our attention. Juggling between our work, our families, and our personal needs. Trying to please everyone and saying Yes to far too many things. Having unrealistic expectations of what we should be able to achieve. Trying to be perfect.

No wonder we are overwhelmed.

So, what’s a person to do?

Well, as always, my first response is to take a deep breath. Or several.

When everything I need to do is swirling around in my head and I start to feel like I am drowning under it, I step away. Literally pull away from my desk. Get up and go into a different room. Or step outside into the sunshine. Get a fresh perspective. Close my eyes and take those deep breaths.

Then I ask myself, “What is most important to me right now?” And I wait for the answer - kind of like watching something rise from the bottom of a pool… allowing the answer to float up.  It’s often not what I expected.

Maybe it’s even to drop it all and go take a walk. Or shift gears completely.

Another helpful question I like to ask myself when feeling overwhelmed is, “Why am I doing this?”  Not just settling for the first answer that pops in my head, but going deeper and deeper until I get to the core of it. Getting in touch with my Why helps me connect with my real reasons for doing what I am doing.

Sometimes the answer helps me realize that what I am doing is really not serving my deepest aspirations, and allows me to let go of something I had committed to for the wrong reasons, or for reasons that were right at the time but no longer make sense.

Other times, the answer might reconnect me with my true passion and purpose, and help me to renew my focus and clarity.

So next time you find yourself in the land of Overwhelm, dearest reader, reach for this little 7-step ticket out of there:

1. Physically step away from where you are.
2. Take a few deep breaths.
3. Ask yourself “What is most important to me right now?”  
4. Ask yourself  “Why am I doing this?”
5. Wait for the answers to come to you.
6. Proceed accordingly.
7. Welcome back home to the Land of Peace.

A few thoughts on overwhelm – taming the paper monster

This photograph is from Einstein's office in Princeton 

from Life magazine in 1955.

I’ve noticed that the amount of overwhelm I feel at any given point in my life is directly proportional to the state of my office. As in the piles (paper, books, notebooks, receipts, etc.).  I like to tell myself the piles are a symptom of my busyness, and that when things settle down (you know, that mysterious point in the future when everything will fall into place, a magical rhythm will assert itself and all your affairs will be in order). Ha! 

I realize that’s just not going to miraculously happen. The problem is, there are SO many other things I’d rather be doing than sorting and filing my piles of paper. So I tell myself I’ll wait for a rainy day. Well, we just had a whole weekend of rainy days, and somehow my office still looks the same. Hmmm, something needs to change.

I suppose I could just carry on and let the piles be the piles. Recently, I saw a picture of Einstein’s desk the day he died– and he made mine look like the pinnacle of neatness.  So I am in excellent company, I tell myself.

The truth of the matter is though, that I plain just don’t like a messy desk. I feel disorganized. I feel cluttered. I can’t find things when I need them. I can’t think clearly. And so…. What to do? I turn once again to Marie Kondo’s little gem of a book The life-changing magic of tidying up.

So, armed with a stack of new file folders and a fresh roll of tape for my trusty labeller, I am ready.  Deep breath, OK, I’m just going to tackle it.

Here we go. Page 95.

“Sorting papers

Rule of thumb – discard everything.”

Page 96.

”My basic principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away.”

“What?”  I say to myself in stunned disbelief. “But…… surely that can’t be right.”  “What if I need it?”

Well, it turns out there are a couple of key things you really do need to keep – you know, like tax receipts. Beyond that, Kondo claims, you really don’t need it.

Wow – that gave me pause. Certainly not what I was expecting. But you know how they say that stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results? Well, I have been going through decades of periodic sorting and filing, and yet here I am again. So, I will trade in my file folders for a large recycling bin.

I’ll let you know how it goes!