I have found several questions lately on social media asking for help because the writer is overwhelmed and is living a life of frenzy!
I don’t know about you, but I think we all, at one time or another, have felt that way.
I also don’t know about you, but I was one of those people that never liked the idea of “getting organized”. I believed in the love and passion of being spontaneous! Living with some excitement and energy found only in the crazy life of the overwhelmed – the fun, the drive, the seemly never-ending sense of living life in chaos that energized me!
Until I realized the only spontaneous thing that was happening in my life was my temper blowing up at my kids, other people, and drivers… always those annoying drivers that got in my way on the highway, parking lots, and …pretty much if you had the audacity to be on the road when I was. (I can neither confirm nor deny that my children learned every four-letter word they know today from their mother behind the wheel of her minivan).
So how did I overcome being overwhelmed and still live a spontaneous life?
Learning to prioritize and get organized with those prioritizations.
Here is the post a left in the comment section of one woman looking for help:
Here are a few tips:
1. Get organized through prioritization – when everything feels overwhelming, it’s usually because everything has been made the priority.
2. Prioritization exists in several parts of our life: spouse, children (I am assuming the first two), business/career, friends, selfcare. These do not exist in a vacuum – instead they are very separate and need their own prioritization lists.
3. Once you have created your individual lists – you must then start creating your calendar and determine when – Monday through Friday (maybe sat and sun) – when these things MUST be completed if they have deadlines. Then schedule out the actions required from the due date to today. This is not a one time, done and done action – you will have to relook at your placement of actions throughout the time you have the task to complete to reassess the timeline (this will be annoying at first but you will eventually get into the habit and it will become normalized).
4. Insert into your schedule the actions/activities the create for you the other needs you have – family time, friends/social, and selfcare, etc. The hardest things about getting organized and staying organized with the goal of reducing stress and feelings of being overwhelmed? Consistency and accountability! I highly recommend getting an accountability partner! these individuals can keep you on task AND be your support when you get off track due to a new project, unexpected event, etc.
Looking forward to hearing how things go for you in your journey forward! Good luck and know that it isn’t easy and wasn’t meant to be easy as you navigate this new normal! (OH! and if you’re like me… I rejected this totally for the longest time because I was like – schedules? I like spontaneity! Until I realized the only thing that was spontaneous was my panic attacks for not staying ahead of the crazy train! . Good luck and let me know how it goes!
It’s not an easy task, as I say in my answer here. It’s a hard habit to break when you are happy to live in the crazy. But if you really want to have a life of kindness, love, and rejoicing in the best of what life has to offer – get organized. Take the time to create the calendar, set the time schedule, and keep yourself accountable to it.
This doesn’t mean that it will go to plan! Hardly.
But what it does do is minimize the impact of each change because you have gotten all those other pesky little things out of the way or have them down on your schedule, so you won’t forget them. It also says, hey, you have more time than you think you do, and you are more capable than you believe yourself to be.
Now get organized!
