Everyone feels overwhelmed at times. It can be a combination of deadlines, stress, fatigue, and a huge pile of laundry. Give it a few days, and it passes. But if you find yourself feeling continually overwhelmed in your business efforts, it may be time to implement a few changes…
1. Adjust Your Expectations
You’re an ambitious person, with high standards and goals for yourself and your business. After a long day at work and a long night at home (and still more work), it may seem, however, that for all your ferocious paddling, those dreams are drifting further away. When you find yourself weighing your goals against your progress, and finding the latter wanting, it may be time to reconsider both. Ask:
- Are my goals realistic?
You may want to break into the Fortune 500, dominate e-pubs, or be the state’s best caterer by the time you’re thirty. However, that level of success usually requires years of effort and–dare we say it–occasional failure. Before you berate yourself for falling behind, make sure your goals are reasonable to begin with; ask a friend’s objective opinion if necessary. - Is my progress measurable?
Once you set realistic goals, find ways to reassure yourself that you’re actually moving towards them. Break your goals into steps, and relate those steps to your daily work. Then–and this is important–write it down! In this way, at the end of every work day, you can make the connection between what you’ve accomplished and your long-term goals. When you see progress, you’ll feel less overwhelmed. - Are my expectations of myself and others sensible?
When you’re working so hard to achieve a dream, it’s important to remember that you are not, in fact, a machine. You need rest, healthy habits, and something in your life besides work. And while your employees, friends, and family all want to support you, they’re also human beings with limitations and desires of their own. Don’t push them–or yourself–beyond endurance. By adjusting your expectations and allowing yourself to relax, you’ll avoid burnout and damaged relationships and, paradoxically, make better progress.
2. Adjust Your Hours
One of the most important things you can do to avoid feeling overwhelmed by your business is to leave it. That’s right, go home. Turn off your phone, or pager, or e-mail. It’s a common fallacy that, when you run your own business, you need to be working 24/7. It’s true, of course, that some enterprises are particularly demanding; if you’re running a restaurant, for example, you’ll need to be at work much more often than if you sell used books online. But when you spend every available moment at work, you run the risk of burnout, or of losing touch with the people who are important to you. So leave work at a reasonable time or, if you must work long hours, schedule a regular day off. Then, when you’re not working, spend time with your loved ones, doing things you enjoy. You’ll return to work calmer, more balanced, and less likely to feel overwhelmed.
3. Adjust Your Workload
Sometimes you feel like you have too much to do because you do, in fact, have too much to do. If this is the case, you can:
- Designate a day or two for catching up. Close the office, put the answering machine on, go offline, and concentrate on clearing your backlog. Enjoy the sense of achievement afterwards!
- Hire an employee. Perhaps your business has grown to the point where it is no longer a one-person operation, or maybe you just don’t have an aptitude for administration. If you cannot afford a full-time assistant, look into hiring a virtual assistant for particular projects, or a student intern to work part-time. You could also barter some of your services to a friend in return for her expertise.
- Cull your client list. Have you taken on too many projects? Do you have a client whose demands keep you from satisfying other obligations? It’s all right to let your less-than profitable clients go. Simply finish their current jobs, explain, nicely, that you’re refocusing your business, and give them a list of referrals.
4. Do Something…
Are you sitting at your desk, thinking of the massive pile of work you have to do, the over-full e-mail inbox, the fifty-seven phone messages, a heap of dishes in the sink, that one form you were supposed to fill out, taxes, and the strange smell somewhere in the living room? Do you just want to disappear? Well, there’s only one way out of this overwhelming mess and that is to–
Do something. If there’s a most pressing task, choose it, but otherwise, pick any job, and do it. Then move on to the next. Sometimes, when faced with an unimaginable workload, we freeze and end up doing very little except hiding in distractions like online farms or an “important” forum discussion. But if you just tackle one item on your to-do list, you’ll break free from that inertia. Progress feeds on progress, and as you keep working, you’ll begin to feel less overwhelmed and more capable.
5. But Be Sure to Finish It
You may have noticed that, while it’s easy to start a project, it can be difficult to finish it. This doesn’t just apply to home improvement or sewing projects; even your workday can be full of half-completed tasks. The amount of work left sitting contributes to your sense of being overwhelmed, while the knowledge that you’ve not finished any of it can lead you to feel down on yourselves and your abilities. So as you begin to work through your chosen task, don’t allow yourself to be distracted until you’ve finished. File all of the paperwork. Answer all of your correspondence. Each completed project will give you a sense of accomplishment which is rewarding in and of itself; still, once you’ve cleared your backlog, treat yourself to something special. You’ve earned it!
It’s normal to feel overwhelmed; life demands a lot of us, and we demand even more of ourselves. But remember, feeling overwhelmed is only that–a feeling. It is no reflection on your abilities, or the future of your business. Feelings are changeable, and they pass. By revising your expectations and taking control of your workload, however, you can move past uncomfortable emotions and achieve your goals.
I have scaled back significantly over these last few weeks because I realized I really was becoming too overwhelmed with my business projects. I dumped about 75% of the things I wanted to work on and went back to the things that were working. I’m going to have less time to focus on my businesses because of up-coming college so I’m doing my best to get them in the best situation they can be in prior which has shown me the real things to work on instead of just “playing around”.
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When it comes to “doing something” – I absolutely rely on my GTD (Getting Things Done) system. Have you read the book? It revolutionized my productivity and helps me feel less overwhelmed. Your point on making sure performance is measurable is also important; otherwise you may just keep spinning your wheels. Great post.
These are great tips and if applied, will deliver great results. Sometimes getting back to basics is just what’s needed to realign our creativity and focus.
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loved this blog…your 5 simple tips really helped me, i never thought of culling my client list…fantastic advise thankyou
I’ve recently found out that I have problems with my self discipline. Sometimes I’m too lazy, but I have good ideas and the opposite. To avoid that I simply made myself a time schedule. Works like magic and it also gives me this good feeling when I’ve finished my daily article.
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Finishing a work is something that put others into a situation that may result for them to be overwhelmed with their activities within a day. Personally, I must admit that I seldom finish tasks on time because I’m too distracted with lots of ideas and things I want to be done immediate. Jumping from one task to the others, leaving one task unfinished and start another tasks again. As a result, I’ll ended up lots of unfinished tasks. As of now, I’m trying my best to work on these things.
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High expectations can destroy a person even if they eventually come true. You work more and more till you lose sight of what’s really important. Then you start having troubles with your health, you begin losing things.
I guess you need to know when to stop, but the goal you’ve set for yourself is so high, stopping becomes extremely difficult.
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Based on my experience, the best way for me to avoid being overwhelmed with tasks is to start finish something. I’m trying to avoid multi-tasking in order for me to finish the task immediately. In that way, I could concentrate on my current task and finish it as fast as possible.
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Some great questions to ponder, its important to avoid getting overwhelmed but maybe its something we cannot avoid sometimes. Multi tasking is something which has become a habit for me. Its good to outsource sometimes so that we can work more smoothly and efficiently.
Great tips to everyone who own a business..We should remember always our health and rest..
You’re right, being overwhelmed is just a feeling….but conquering, that’s easier said than done. Some people cannot deal with stress so easily, it just takes practice that’s all.
I usually wait until the last minute to set appointments for the following week but I realized that scheduling in advance makes much more sense. It’s just about time management and of course more of planning.
This post is very informative and I do agree that when you are overwhelmed already in terms of your working load you really need to adjust them and you need to take a rest also. That way you can do more valuable work and also you’re mind is not clattered of different things.
Great article, a lot of smart ways of avoiding being overwhelmed. In my opinon, one of the most important ways of avoiding this is by following a schedule, that way you will keep yourself organised and will know the difference between work and “free time”; which is very important. Working too much on something can cut both ways, it can bring you success or madness, in my opinion. You must follow a schedule, work but also take your time to relax and have fun, because if you’re over-stressed you won’t give your best at work.
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the best way to not to be overwhelmed is to avoid multi tasking, make short goals to achieve the biggest goal. thanks for sharing your words.
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Informative Post and more positive commenting. Its all about dealing with pressure. One should be over whelmed and aggressive to deal with work pressure. Thanks for the post
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Avoid being overwhelmed just focus on your business’ goal.
When we are following the these five things, we can avoid overwhelmed in our business. We can say that these are the key of successful business.
Overwhelmed is not good for business. We must safe something for avoid this.
Ofcorse we have to adjust our workload , our stress reason,. we must avoid aggresssiveness, otherwise the people around us feeling not good with us.
5. But Be Sure to Finish It, this is my favourite of your 5 tips, I’m always procrastinating myself.
Agree with Rizxi, it’s best to break tasks up as not to get overwhelmed.