How many times you have felt that there is simply a lot on your plate…more than you can handle in a day? What do you do then? Try to offload some of the tasks or try harder to fit in everything in a given day (and night) or week!

Super Efficient and Productive = Overwhelmed?
 
Then, even if you have been able to fit in everything in a given day, how does it make you feel?  Overwhelmed, right? In the short run, if being a super efficient and productive person makes you feel happy and accomplished, does this feeling last long?

Probably not! When this tendency to take onboard more and more work becomes a behavior pattern, you start to eventually feel anxious and stressed! And then the feeling becomes permanent, negatively impacting your health, mental wellness and your relationships.

We live in a culture obsessed with optimal performance and productivity. So it’s natural to lose sight of your goals, take on more than you can handle, and resultantly, become stressed and disillusioned, not to mention deeply unhappy!

So what are some of the ways we can bring down the feeling of overwhelm? Here is my take on it:

3 Steps to Properly Offload Tasks and Still Have a Win

Here are three steps you can need to take when offloading tasks, so that you don’t end ruining your To-Do list and messing others’ day:

1)  Set Your To-Do List and Assess it Realistically

There are no two ways about it: when you can’t handle too many things, you just have to let go, strike off a few tasks from your To-Do list.Even if you could do them all, there would be a cost: more stress and a negative impact on the work quality.

Therefore, you have to realistically assess your To-Do list from time to time, in accordance with the time available to you and your priorities. Sometimes, ewe end up making an overambitious list, stuffing too many things in our to-do list. Or, we make incorrect estimates about the time needed to do those tasks and the time available to us. Or, emergencies and unforeseen circumstances change the priorities as well as the time available to us. Therefore, plan realistically and then assess your plans and goals from time to time in order to have a list that’s workable and executable.  

Offload and Adjust

After assessment, there comes the most important step, i.e., offloading of tasks. You simply have to accept that you can’t do everything if you don’t have enough time! You can probably rush through a few things, but not all!

Hence, the next realistic step is to, of course, is to just offload anything that is not important at the moment. Likewise, turn down anything you can’t fit in or handle in your existing plan.

Furthermore, you would only be in a position to assess your tasks’ importance and urgencies when you have a proper and realistic to-do list.

 A to-do list is not set in stone. It can be modified and it should be modified, according to your situation. The situation changes, our energy levels fluctuate; thus, the wisest thing is to make adjustments accordingly in your plans and goals.  

Reorganize, Restrategigze  

In order to make adjustments in your to-do, you need to reorganize your goals and shift around things. The first thing is to just focus on the critical and urgent tasks and get them out of the way.

Sometimes, getting out one critical part of the work from your way will give you a big win and boost of energy. At other times, getting a bunch of urgent tasks out of the way can help you clear up your mind and energy for tasks of critical nature, requiring your focus full and singular attention.

While reorganizing and strategizing your To-Do list and the goals in it, don’t forget to communicate things to the concerned people.

Running late?
Postponing something?
Have a new goal or insight?

 Inform the concerned person! Do it in an emotionally intelligent way! Here are a few examples:

I have too much on my list today! We can meet tomorrow!

Something unexpected has come up. I am sorry your project would get delayed by a few hours.

I am not feeling up to it! Can we postpone till the next week?

This would save you and others from a lot of stress, drama, conflict and guilt.

To Sum Up

The desire to do more and more (more than what we can handle) is not ambition, it’s a disease. It robs satisfaction and happiness from us. If you are overwhelmed, you need to assess your situation, prioritize and bump things off your list according to the situation, and then make adjustments and reorganize your goals. It’s important to understand everything that needs to be done, but also what can be re-adjusted, delayed, postponed later in case of an emergency. The more flexible we are in terms of our planning and execution, the more successful and happier we would be eventually.