Most of the things that overwhelm people involve managing client expectations, co-workers that don’t pull their weight, and a lack of communication.
Aside from being honest with your boss/co-workers about your state of mind, which was probably the #1 recommendation from the masses, here were a few of my tips:
1.) Take a step back, take a deep breath, go for a walk.
If you’re overwhelmed you’re not going to be effective. It’s important to step away and get your bearings straight first. I’ve found a bit of sunshine, a trip to the vending machine, or a quick call to a parent or a friend is a great way to calm down and come back to your desk fresh.
2.) Prioritize what HAS to be done & do that first.
Staring at a long to-do list and can leave us overwhelmed. It’s important to realize that you can’t complete all the tasks at once. Quite a few people have been discussing the triage approach of late. That’s quite applicable here. Triage is a process of prioritizing patients based on the severity of their condition.
You can only do one thing at a time so pick the most important thing, focus, and knock it out. What’s due end of day? What can you do after-hours that doesn’t have to be done until the following morning? What can you catch up on next week after things have settled a bit?
3.) Keep things in perspective.
The world usually won’t end if you mess something up. Stay in the present, and tackle one thing at a time.
I thought when I left school and entered the workforce everyone would be uber-efficient, but that’s just not true. Just like in school, people often wait until the last minute to get something done. I know middle managers from huge companies that ask for slides from co-workers by Friday end of day, and don’t have half of them Sunday at midnight.
I’m not condoning this, nor am I advocating procrastination or excuses on a regular basis; however, people do anticipate mistakes and missed deadlines. If you’re overwhelmed because you screw up or it’s just physically impossible to complete something on time, it’s important to communicate that to your client, co-workers, etc., preferably before shit hits the fan.
As long as you don’t make a habit of it, understand that these things happen, it’s going to be okay, and start immediately doing what you can to rectify the situation and overachieve moving forward.
4.) Finally, being overwhelmed isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
It’s completely dependent on your REACTION to being overwhelmed and if you’re capable of channeling it into useful, positive energy.
I suspect this depends on your definition of overwhelmed, but like anything else in life your reaction to what happens to you is key. You can get flustered, incapable of finishing your work, feel sorry for yourself, task team members with pulling some of your weight OR you can make up your mind that in the scheme of things this will be a tiny blip on your life’s radar (and even tinier on everyone else’s) and find a way to conquer it.
And guess what? It’ll happen again, and again. That’s life.
Photo Credit: PhotoBlackburn
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Taking a step back to breath and relax is always a good thing. Then, focus on what needs to get done and eliminate the “busy work” (the distractions that aren’t really adding to progress or completion of a project). When you think about it, a lot of it is busy work. I’ve also learned that problems are never to big to deal with and are best solved when dealt with right away. Everyone ends up happy that way!
.-= Ricardo Bueno´s last blog ..50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business =-.