I've had a surprising number of conversations lately about how overwhelmed people are feeling.

Not just one or two conversations, either. It seems to come up almost every day, whether I'm talking with other leaders, colleagues, or people trying to figure out how to manage everything that's coming at them between home, life and work.

Something I've noticed in those conversations is that its not necessarily that people have too much work, although that's certainly part of it.

It's that they're struggling to find clarity about what they should actually be focusing on because literally it seems that there are hundreds of balls in the air at any given moment.

When we're overwhelmed, our brains don't exactly respond by becoming calmer, more strategic, and exceptionally good at making decisions. Wouldn't that be convenient?

Instead, we can become even more reactive. We focus on what's directly in front of us, what feels urgent, or what someone is asking or demanding our attention for right now.

And when everything feels urgent, it's incredibly difficult to figure out what actually matters.

Which is unfortunate for us humans, because clarity is often the very thing that would help us find our way through the chaos.

You don't have to have everything figured out

When I talk about clarity, I don't mean knowing exactly how everything is going to turn out or knowing every single detail to figure something out.

I've spent enough of my career working through complex change to know that waiting for certainty is often a spectacular way to get absolutely nowhere fast.

I'm talking about something much simpler.

Knowing the direction you need to go, understanding what's important right now, and being able to identify the next couple of steps that will move you forward.

That's it.

You don't need to solve every problem, anticipate every obstacle, or have a perfect plan.

You need enough clarity to make your next good decision.

And sometimes, when you're feeling completely overwhelmed, even that can seem difficult.

The piece of paper on my wall

There's a worksheet hanging on a board in my office that I've used for a long, long time.

It's nothing particularly sophisticated. In fact, the entire exercise comes down to three questions:

What must I do that only I can do?

What can I delegate or share?

What can I let go of?

I try to use these questions daily, particularly when I feel my attention being pulled in too many directions.

And I've found myself sharing this little exercise with people repeatedly lately.

What strikes me is that the people I'm sharing it with aren't inexperienced. They're capable, skilled professionals who have been successfully managing complicated work for years.

But even the most experienced among us need simple systems to help us stay steady when things become overwhelming.

The first question forces me to think about what genuinely needs my attention.

The second makes me consider whether I'm assuming responsibility for something that could be shared, or that someone else might be perfectly capable of owning.

And the third is often the most uncomfortable.

Because letting go of something can feel like admitting that it doesn't matter, that we're letting someone down, or that we're somehow not doing enough.

But sometimes it simply means recognizing that our time and attention are finite, and we need to make choices about how we use them.

I don't always get this right, by the way and I’ll be the first to admit this.

I can be very good at convincing myself that I can fit just one more thing into an already full week.

More on that particular talent and what it costs you another time.

Your Anchor for this week

If you're feeling overwhelmed, I'd encourage you to spend five minutes with those three questions before you start trying to work your way through everything on your list.

You don't have to reorganize your entire life or come up with a brilliant new productivity system.

Just get clear on what needs you, what doesn't necessarily need you, and what might not need to happen at all.

Then pick the next couple of steps.

Sometimes that's enough to start feeling like you're moving forward again.

🩵 What I'm loving

I've been reading Ben Meers' new book “How to Be Good at Life: Simple Systems to Achieve More and Stress Less”, you can find it on Amazon and I'm really enjoying it.

What I appreciate is how simply he breaks things down. There's a powerful idea running through what I've been reading: we can have all the discipline in the world, but if we don't have systems that actually support what we're trying to accomplish, we're making things unnecessarily hard for ourselves.

I've found it so useful that I bought a copy for my son, who recently moved out on his own.

I figure learning how to build good systems for your life is a pretty valuable skill when you're starting to figure out life on your own.

And, frankly, it's a pretty valuable skill when you've been figuring out life for several decades, too.

Until next week,

Heather

Anchored in Possibility™

The future belongs to those who know who they are when everything changes.