Are you feeling overwhelmed?
One of my Kick Ass Collective members messaged the membership group the other day with this:
“I’m so overwhelmed today. Do you guys get like this now and again? I’ve got so much on my mind and I keep procrastinating… then beat myself up about it.”
This rang SO TRUE with me! Being overwhelmed with all the things I “should do” makes me feel panicky, and I spend the day with 100 tabs open, flitting between them all, and getting nothing done – and then feeling worse about my situation because I got nothing done. The stress then seeps into my evening time off because I feel like the day was a waste.
Why do we feel like this?
Comparisonitis
I think one of the things that causes overwhelm for people is the sheer amount of things other people seem to be doing. Your ‘competitor’ posts an epic post on Instagram, reminding you that you haven’t posted in a month and haven’t had a new follower in forever. Score one for overwhelm! And it always looks like everyone else is being so productive and you’re so far behind them.
Infobesity
Another reason for overwhelm. You get an email from an educator saying “you need to learn this thing for your business, so join my free 5-day challenge or webinar.” and you feel like crap because you realise you don’t know what you don’t know about that topic so you feel like you need to join their session to learn it. You then spend all your time on free education, while feeling bad about all the paid education you haven’t got round to doing yet, and also while doing absolutely nothing productive. Times this by every single day of the week. Score two to overwhelm!
Education procrastination
There’s also the weird phenomenon of education as a form of procrastination. You feel like you’re getting stuff done because you’re focusing on your business, but actually you’re not doing anything productive at all. This leads to you feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things you’ve learned and also overwhelmed at how much you need to do to implement it all, and not know what you should actually implement. Ding ding ding score three to overwhelm!
Not being able to separate life and work
It’s so hard to know when and how to just switch off! Especially if you have kids and you need to get work done but feel guilty for not giving them more time. Keeping your laptop open or your phone nearby and pinging all evening while you’re trying to relax doesn’t help.
Top tips for beating overwhelm
1. Create more than educate
I’m all for education, but you need to create before you add any more education. When you learn something, implement it before learning something else – and think about whether the thing you learned actually works for you too, before spending time and energy on it. I recently took a £97 masterclass on a specific topic, and came away from it feeling like I actually didn’t want to do the project anymore. Instead of feeling like I’d spent £97 and two hours so I shouldn’t waste that, I decided not to waste any more of my time and money actioning the things I’d learned, and just sacked the whole idea off.
2. Learn when to say no
You should say no to anything that doesn’t fit your way of working. Say no to shoots that are on a day you’d rather do something else, say no to enquiries that aren’t your thing, say no to types of shoots you don’t usually do (and don’t ever plan to do) as the prep for the shoot would outweigh any financial gain. For example, I said no to a huge corporate shoot for Argos because I would have had to hire and learn studio lighting, and I had no desire to do any more shoots like it. I also said no to a wedding 5 hours from me (several times recently in fact) because I didn’t want to spend 3 days on a 1-day wedding. Your time and mental headspace are precious. This leaves you with more time and energy to do a better job on things that are important – and earn you the most money and bring you the most joy.
3. Take social media with a pinch of salt
That post by your competitor may have been outsourced to a VA. It may have taken them everything they’ve got to bring themselves to post. They may have scheduled a month of posts when they were feeling good and are right now under their duvet feeling like you. They may get no bookings from their efforts. Long story short: there’s no point comparing yourself because you don’t know how well they’re doing – you only know how well you’re doing. You also don’t know their plans, goals, intent behind these posts, and they may well be different to yours.
4. Think about where you’re at
Are you actually doing ok with bookings? Are your enquiries already good? Then stop worrying about needing to be busy all the time. If these things are not going well for you, think about what you can do that will make you feel good AND get you further in your business. An instagram post will probably not get you a booking, but making contact with a local vendor or striking up conversation with a fellow photographer might.
5. Take the day off
Sometimes giving it a day makes everything so much less overwhelming. Write down things you feel you need to do and then come back to it when you’re feeling better.
6. Don’t beat yourself up
Everyone has off days. Your business won’t end if you take a day off. Your followers won’t wonder where you are. But if you beat yourself up about not being productive, well, it’s not going to make you very productive is it? Go for a walk, read a book, watch Netflix. And do it without guilt. You’ll get stuff done when you’re in a better headspace.
7. Use the Pomodoro app
This is a way of timing your working day to make sure you get stuff done and take breaks. It’s an app that times you for 25 minutes of work, then times a 5-minute break. This happens a few times, with a longer break in the middle too. It makes you far less likely to get distracted, because you know your break time is coming up – it makes you WANT to get stuff done in the short time you have! Plus your break will feel earned, and you won’t feel guilty browsing Facebook. The Pomodoro technique works SO well with culling and editing.
8. Track your cycle
This was a GAME CHANGER for me! It’s for the women, but useful for men to understand what the women in their lives are going through. Every day has a number and season – it starts with day 1, which is… ya know… They call it ‘winter’ and you are very allowed to do fuck all and eat anything. But as soon as that’s all over, you enter your ‘spring’ which is a productive time. Then ‘summer’ which is your super productive time. Then ‘autumn’ which is a ‘starting to hunker down’ time where you won’t get much done. If you’re in autumn or winter – so day 21 onwards – then that might be why you’re feeling overwhelmed and unproductive. It’s your hormones! So instead of struggling through work, crack open a tub of ice cream and snuggle with a hot water bottle.
9. Unsubscribe
Unsubscribe from emails that make you feel overwhelmed. My two ways of doing this are using unroll.me and waiting till Black Friday when all those sales emails come rolling in!
10. Fix your work/life balance
Just pick one thing to get done that day – and when it’s done, if you’re feeling good, do an extra thing. If you’re feeling exhausted, take the rest of the day off to learn, relax, exercise, see friends and family, look after yourself.
11. Know your best times
My most productive time (I only learned this recently) is 6am to 8am. I get SO MUCH done. There’s no social media distraction, there’s no sunny day luring me out, there are no phone calls or pings on my phone. My mind is fresh and I’m not bogged down by the day. Knowing your most productive time means you can spend a couple of hours being productive and the rest of the day can be spent either working if you’re in the mood or making the most of your mood by doing whatever you feel like doing without guilt. Mid-afternoon and after 7pm is a write-off for me productivity-wise!
12. Organise your week
I plan my week ahead (often things get moved around) but it makes me feel purposeful and productive and on top of things. I write down every itty bitty job so nothing looks big and daunting. Top tip: if a task takes longer to write down on a to-do list that to actually do it, then just do it.
13. Turn off your phone
I recently read a book called How to Break Up with Your Phone, which is a 30-day plan to… break up with your phone. It talks about how the distraction of our phone affects our focus and memory – and I definitely don’t want life to pass me by with my head in my phone! They’re literally designed with addictive qualities – it’s scary. I’m excited to try the 30-day gradual plan though, and am starting today! Spending so much time on your phone is just an onslaught of information and things that make you feel bad. Do yourself a favour and just focus on yourself and the real world and not what others are doing, and things will seem less scary and overwhelming.
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