Whether you’re feeling like you have too much on your plate at work, can’t catch up with things at home, or are just stressed out over the general state of your life right now, these feelings of being overwhelmed can make it hard to accomplish all of the tasks you have set before you right now. However, rather than just giving up or giving in, you can find ways to move forward and hopefully bring a little more peace and balance to your life.
To help you get to this point, here are three tips for working through feeling overwhelmed.
Prioritize Getting Enough Sleep
Being overwhelmed can be a vicious cycle. The most time you spend working on the things you need to get done, the less time you spend taking care of yourself. And when you’re not taking care of yourself, you likely won’t have the mental, physical, or emotional resources you need to keep working as hard as you are and still be productive.
To stop this cycle, Erin Greenawald, a contributor to The Muse, shares that the first and best thing you can do for yourself, which might seem counterintuitive to some, is to give yourself a break by ensuring that you’re getting enough sleep at night. While you might think that sleeping is just wasting your time and causing you to get more behind, if you’re not operating on a full night’s sleep, you’re not going to be at your best. So while it can be hard to turn everything off for a few hours, this is going to be one of the best ways you can work through these feelings.
Take Something Off Your Plate
When your to-do list is a mile long, you’re going to need to get really good at prioritizing if you’re wanting to ever get anything done.
One way you can effectively prioritize, according to Alice Boyles, a contributor to Psychology Today, is to figure out what things you’re actively going to put on the back burner or take off of your to-do list for a while. Once you have those things, your mind can clear things up a bit for you. And if you’re able to, consider just outsourcing that work to someone that can take on those jobs just as well if not better than you could anyway.
Schedule Your Day Correctly
If each of your days feels overwhelming to you, it can be easy to let the day get away from you and feel like you’re not really accomplishing anything. But if you’re able to schedule your days correctly, you can overcome these feelings.
According to Ginny Graves, a contributor to Health.com, the best way to schedule your day is to do the most challenging or demanding tasks first. Then, once you’ve given those tasks your all, you can use the reserves of your energy and creativity to tackle the smaller things that still need to get done.
If you’re feeling very overwhelmed by a part of your life right now, consider implementing some of the tips mentioned above to help you meet these challenges.
