How to beat overwhelm and get things done (for real)

As a mom of three kids, the feeling of overwhelm is not foreign to me. There have been countless times when I’ve been so overwhelmed with everything going on that I end up scrolling on my phone instead of cleaning my house (yes, countless times 🫣). Add a dash of perfectionism to the mix, and I was solid. But over the years I have found ways that helped me take action and overcome these feeling of overwhelm. Whether I overcame it for a short amount of time (which relieved me anyway) or I overcame it over a longer period of time in a certain area, I have my ways set out in this article.

I could ramble on and on about how I have felt (and still feel sometimes), but I think you know exactly what feeling I’m talking about. Let me just take you right to the 🍖 and 🥔🥔: my own tried and tested ways.

Declutter to Have a Less Cluttered Mind

I feel that the term decluttering is such a buzzword nowadays but hear me out. It’s more likely I feel overwhelmed and out of control when I’m standing in my living room looking around and I can’t see one clear surface. I’m a master at hiding mess, so whenever I looked at the cabinets in my house or at my couch which has a nifty (!) hidden compartment, I just knew that the contents were ready to spill out. On top of that, the thought of clearing out everything, just made me want to sit down with a ☕️ and pretend I had nothing on my mind and everything was just peachy 🍑.

I was done feeling that way. And even though I’m a “go big or go home” kind of gal, I have come to the realization time and time again that starting small is my thing to achieve more in the long run. If you don’t already know, making printables for everything is kind of my jam, so I sat down and made a decluttering checklist (I even made a challenge out of it). Looking at the steps on the list made me feel I could do it, and the whole shebang seemed less daunting to me.

I also came to realize that even if I achieved one thing, no matter how small it was, I felt so much better, and my feelings of overwhelm and falling behind decreased significantly. I have been checking off my way to a tidier space ever since. ✅

Prioritize and break it down

When you feel way in over your head, it’s time to take a step back and make it easier on yourself. “Easier on myself?” you ask. “I need to get things done 🏃‍♀️💨!”. I hear you! But there are many roads that lead to Rome, and the one I’m about to show you is the least bumpy. Sometimes, you may think that doing thing A will bring you the most results, while in actuality doing thing B will bring you where you want to be. A priority matrix (or this to do list) is a great starting point. List the things you need to do and categorize them into the following:

• Urgent-Important: do it
• Urgent-Not Important: plan it
• Not Important-Urgent: delegate it
• Not Important-Not Urgent: delete it

If you have everything you need to do in front of you and you still feel stuck, break it down with this worksheet. Believe me that even writing everything out will relieve some of the tension you feel inside, because you know you’re on the road of actually getting things done. 💅

Aren’t you doing too much?

If you feel buried under a ⛰️ of things you feel like you have to do, it’s time to be honest with yourself and weed out the commitments that don’t serve you (and your mental health!). Overcommitting is a common trap because we want to help people out and we don’t want to miss out on things in life. But don’t swap quantity for quality. 👩‍🏫 Especially if this means you’ll get time and energy back to use for the things that actually mean something to you. These two things – time and energy – are invaluable, so use them wisely, or they’ll use you. ⚔

If you find yourself saying, “Oh, I’d love to do XYZ, but I don’t have the time!” one time too many, fight for even an extra 5 minutes to do that thing you know would make you happy. So, prioritize, break it down, and say “no” to every request that doesn’t serve you. Doing all these things will free up mental space and time!

Go to 💤!

Ugh, sleep. We love to do it, but we don’t do it enough. Whether we have childlings holding on to our legs or we want to finish just one more chapter (pretty please?), people today don’t get enough sleep. Getting enough Z’s not only gives you more energy, but it also does wonders for your brain. I have experienced this firsthand. As I mentioned earlier, I’m a mom of three, so I’ve often been running on too few hours of sleep, more often than not. 🥱 The days after I’ve had enough sleep are certainly much better for me. I have more patience, can think more clearly, and feel more positive. Whenever I have a negative view on everything, my husband always tells me to go to bed earlier that night. He apparently knows how I roll. 🙄

So, try to schedule an early bedtime today. Don’t scroll on your phone too much, listen to some nature sounds (that helps me calm down whenever my mind is overworking), and turn off every light in your room. If you can’t go to sleep earlier, try to squeeze in a power nap during the day. If you have difficulties turning around your sleep cycle, this sleep tracker will help you get a clear overview of your 📈! And in case you desperately want to have a bedtime routine to properly wind down before bed, I’ve got you covered as well! I know, I have been B-U-S-Y!

When stuck, get into a 15-minute-mindset!

Oh, the times I felt so overwhelmed that I stopped doing anything 🤩. And during many of those times, when I felt at my wit’s end, I whipped out my 15-minute planner. I sat down with it and started writing for the next 15-minute block. I just wrote down the thing I was going to do during that time for 15 minutes. So, if the messy kitchen countertops bothered me the most, I’d write down “clear countertops.” I set the ⏲️ and went for it. Sometimes I wrote tasks to do after that, but the deal was that I was only going to do it for 15 minutes. This has always, always helped me get things done.

Whew! We’re at the end of this one. I really hope these tactics will help you just as they have helped me in beating this overwhelm thingy and just feeling more at 😌.

Until next time!
Lots of love, Maya