Are you an entrepreneur juggling multiple responsibilities, including caring for loved ones? Do you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of never-ending tasks, emails, and to-do lists? You’re not alone.
Many entrepreneurs experience overwhelm at some point in their journey.
The good news is that you can overcome it and take control of your business and your life. In this blog post, we’ll explore effective strategies to help you navigate overwhelm and achieve your business goals while still taking care of yourself and your loved ones.
***NOTE*** What you will NOT find in this article are the same old time management suggestions of prioritizing your tasks and breaking things down into small chunks. Because reality is, your overwhelm is not a time management issue, and I know that. You already do more than most. This article will go over some lesser known ways to beat the overwhelm and feel better while you’re getting things done.
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Get Better at Saying No
Entrepreneur and business mogul Warren Buffett once said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” As an entrepreneur, it’s important to recognize that you can’t do everything. It’s human nature to want to please people, to want to help others, and to want to get it all done. It’s completely natural.
However, as a business owner you must get good at saying no. The more successful you get the more often you will be approached by people wanting your help, support, involvement, etc. It will continue to become more and more important for you to set boundaries and say no.
One thing I do is make a list of the types of things I would like to do, and the things I don’t want to do. When opportunities come up that fall in either camp it makes it easy to know what to say. And if something comes up that you haven’t already put on the Yes or No list, evaluate it, respond and add that to the list for next time.
For instance, for me podcasts are a yes. Summits are a yes. Tech implementation is a no. Design is a no.
This makes it super simple for me when new requests come in. If it’s something that’s a no for me I can either have someone on my team do the work or I can refer out to colleagues. But in any case, I don’t do the work if it doesn’t fuel me and energize me.
72% of business owners feel fairly overwhelmed by their roles and responsibilities
Do a Capacity Check In
Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have a limited capacity to handle things on a daily basis. Being aware of your own personal capacity on a daily basis will serve as your barometer for how the day will go.
For many of us we start our day with our to dos and obligations, never really taking the time to check in with ourselves. We consider everything on our list as essentials that we can’t get out of, so we just start doing with little to no regard for our daily capacity and resulting ability to make it through the full day.
By performing a daily capacity check in, determining your readiness to handle the day, you can then look through your day’s obligations and see if there is something that needs to be delegated to allow you to handle the most important of tasks.
Entrepreneur and CEO of Virgin Group Richard Branson once said, “If you really want to grow as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to learn to delegate.” This is never more important than on low capacity day with a monster of a to do list.
Practice Radical Presence
As entrepreneurs with full personal lives, caring for our loved ones, enjoying our family and friends while growing a successful business we can often find ourselves doing many things. Trying to get things done quickly can lead to multitasking and split attention. Which often means we don’t do anything as well as we could.
This split attention and drive to work on more than one thing at a time can lead to a feeling of franticness and overwhelm.
The best thing you can do when this happens is to take 30 seconds and get very present. Take a couple deep breaths. Notice where you are physically. How is your body feeling? What position are you in? What thoughts are running through your head?
If you can’t get quiet enough to answer these questions try sitting down, breathing, and just counting as you breathe. Nothing else. Just count as you breathe in, and again as you breathe out.
30 seconds of this will put you back in the present and pull you out of your overwhelmed place, so you can make intentional decisions about where you will go next.
“You are allowed to be both a Masterpiece and a Work in Progress simultaneously.”
Work Side to Side Instead of Top to Bottom
Conventional advice tells us to look at our priorities, organize them from top priority to bottom priority, start at the top and work down.
While this makes a certain amount of sense it can lead to feelings that you may be neglecting something else important in favor of something that is “higher” on the list.
I don’t know about you, but for me, I often have more than one important priority. And just because one thing is “top” priority it doesn’t mean something below it can wait.
By organizing your priorities to be next to each other rather than on top of each other you have a bit more freedom to be intentional about where you spend your time and what goals you are working on.
Entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss once said, “Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” This often comes from making decisions about what to work on based on top down prioritizing. If you, instead, focus on side to side priorities you can be very intentional about your attention and energy and move effortlessly between priorities.
54% of workers report that stress from work affects their life at home.
Create Work/Life Blend AND Separation
As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to fall into the trap of working 24/7. And conventional teaching around work-life balance teaches us to carve out specific times to work, specific times to “live” and to make sure there is a healthy and intentional balance between the two.
However, there has been more recent research to suggest that a Work/Life blend is more achievable and practical in today’s environment. From handling personal stuff during the day to doing some work at night, finding a way to blend the two can go a long way to reducing overwhelm.
The danger, of course, is that you never unplug from work and end up feeling burned out. To avoid this you can create a Work/Life Separation that ensures you take time each day away from your business to rest and recharge.Determine your work hours and stick to them as much as possible. Avoid checking emails or taking calls outside of those hours, and don’t be afraid to say no to non-essential meetings or commitments.
Overwhelm is a natural part of life. In today’s day and age of multiple priorities and obligations it is normal to have moments, even days or weeks, of overwhelm. What we often do is feel guilty when we experience overwhelm, judging ourselves for not being able to handle it all with more grace.
The fact is, we can handle it with more grace. We just need some habits and tools to help us do that. Because overwhelm will happen. It happens to everyone. What differentiates us is how we handle it when it does.
Action Steps
- Make a list of things you do and don’t want to do. Evaluate all new requests against this list, and add new ones as they come up.
- Do a capacity check in every morning to gauge your readiness for the day. Balance that against your obligations and make adjustments as needed.
- Take 30 seconds when you need it. Get fully present. Try this when you aren’t overwhelmed, notice how you feel, and use this feeling as an anchor to presence when overwhelm hits.
- Reorganize your priorities to be horizontal rather than vertical and remove the guilt from working in the middle.
- Create a work/life blend. Accept that it’s not an even or equal world. It is a blended world. Build your life to work within that framework and notice the guilt and overwhelm fade
