Everybody gets this; it's not a secret. Everybody gets overwhelmed, particularly more and more in modern society.
I don't think it is not getting overwhelmed that is the task; I think it is having tools to deal with the overwhelm that is the task.
And so, here are two tools to deal with the overwhelm that may help you if you're struggling this weekend on your trip back to work.
1) Your to-do list is a menu; it is not the law.
This is really important, and I've spoken about this before. It comes from the genius that is Oliver Burkeman.
If you look at your to-do list as a choice of things you could do and not must-dos, then you can get on and decide what you're going to do today, understanding that some of it will be left until tomorrow.
It's like when you sit in a restaurant, you're not compelled to eat everything on the menu, nor are you ever likely to do everything on your to-do list, particularly for that timescale.
2) Prioritisation.
Fifteen minutes spent panicking in prioritisation, settling down, and realising that the world will not end if you leave 90% of your to-do list for later is genius.
As I finished work on Friday, there were way more things to do than I could possibly have managed, even over the weekend. Still, I decided I would do some work over the weekend on the things that I felt were important and realised that nobody was likely to die due to the things that I didn't do.
Settling back to understand that is what stops us from spiralling into a place where we find it more and more difficult to recover, and then we burn.
Blog Post Number - 3645