Already overwhelmed? You’ve barely hit your desk, and the emails are pouring in, the bills are sitting in a stack, the water boiler needs fixing, dogs need grooming, car needs washing, the play dates need setting up, the tutor is sick…oh, and now more emails – they just keep coming! You know what? Probably best just to shut it all out and spend a few hours diddling around on Facebook, or better still, go check out the online sales that every single company in the Universe in pinging me about – PHEW…official overwhelm and we haven’t got through the first week of 2015.
It’s funny that when I ask everyone I know if they had a good rest over the break, they look at me as if I am crazy! “WHAT??” they exclaim, because the truth is that taking a proper good rest is almost a thing of the past for most of us. We never switch off, right?
So, in order to avoid becoming totally overwhelmed and exhausted before we even hit mid-January, allow me to offer you some tips that help me to stay centered and sane.
1. Plan my week ahead within an inch of its life! If I start getting too lax (aka as: going with the flow), with my plans, I end up overwhelmed and confused. In this day and age, when I have emails, tweets, texts and kids coming at me 24/7, I need to have a VERY structured day/week. What this means is that I have my boundaries already set up with no excuses to do what I need to do: If the gym or pilates class is scheduled, then someone else will have to take the dog for a walk. If my meditation/quiet time is scheduled, then questions and even cooking dinner will have to wait (or, they could make their own).
2. Plan my meals ahead: This goes with tip #1, but needs a deserves its own category because it’s such an important one. Go to Plan To Eat and organize your week and shopping list in one simple place.
3. Switch off my email: If like me, you spend 90% of your working day on your computer, you might want to consider switching off your email for large chunks of your day. I find that I can get loads done, and be way more efficient/focused, when I’m not constantly replying to emails or erasing junk.
4. Intentions List: Given that you are probably already struggling with your New Years resolutions, I find it helpful to keep everything in the day, rather than thinking I have to keep something up forever. Here’s what I do each morning: After a mini-meditation and yoga practice (I call it “Me Time” and you’ll learn tons about this in my up-coming book), I whip out my notebook (which I do prefer to keeping notes on my phone – but either works), and make a list of TODAY’s Intentions. I make sure the first one is always a Spiritual one, such as: Today I intend to stay connected to my intuition, and then I write out a short list of the most important things that I need to accomplish today.
5. Get up and MOVE!: When I am feeling really overwhelmed, my body responds with stress hormones wrecking havoc. The most effective way to combat this is to get up, switch everything off (including my phone), and take a 30 minute walk anyway. The physicality of walked allows my breathing to return it’s more natural rhythm, and helps me to realize my mind/body connection – otherwise it’s way too easy to stay locked in my mostly useless thoughts.
Hope you manage to UNDER-whelm yourself this week with your buzy-ness, but overwhelm yourself with Love!
