Help! I'm overwhelmed!

I feel overwhelmed with all the things I have to do. How do I balance everything so I’ll never feel this way again?

Before you really begin to address this, you have to adequately identify what that feeling is, and manage it. When you’re scared or confused, you’re not able to handle things well. The Dad sometimes feels overwhelmed with billing, in which The Dad has to account for each of his hours. It doesn’t take a lot of brain-power to do it; The Dad just doesn’t enjoy it. For you, it might be cleaning the toilet or or washing your parents’ car or any number of things. So, The Dad sits down to do his billing, but when he is overwhelmed, he also finds time to water the plants and answer emails and handle phone calls… Those are things that need to be done— but they’re not in the priority line! When we feel overwhelmed, part of that may very well be dealing not with quantity of things done but also value and motivation.

The 80/20 Rule has to do with the value of things. The short version is that 80% of the value is usually in 20% of the things. So at a grocery store, 80% of the profit might come from 20% of the items that are there. Look at your list: I have 10 things to do— 80% of the value is probably in 20%— or two— of those items! So, you need to look at the things you are overwhelmed by and see what’s of value. There may be some you can throw out, some you can ask for help with, some you can bow out of, and some that you really must do.

Frequent readers know that The Dad is always a fan of making lists. Consider an “A,” “B,” and “C” list where “A”s are top-priority, “B”s are pretty important, and “C”s can be left for another time or maybe even struck from the list. And be on the lookout for phone calls or other distractions that aren’t even on the list.

But the truth is sometimes you are overwhelmed. Sometimes things outside your control (and things within your control too) pile up until there actually is too much to do. Sometimes there really are too many "A"s and "B"s on your priority list.

In fact, when it comes to balancing it all, The Dad is giving advice that The Dad doesn’t always follow (but tries to). (The Mom can tell you that The Dad overcommits: one of the skills necessary to not feeling overwhelmed is to learn to say “no”.)

The Dad believes that the ability to manage feeling overwhelmed is learned, and that muscle has to be developed and regularly practiced. The Dad doesn’t know many people who can get to a point in managing their stressors successfully and then stay there. So, to answer your question “How do I never feel this way again?”— The Dad doesn’t know. Maybe we should channel a cat whose only concern is when to eat. Her priorities are much more evident: Eat, sleep, play occasionally… but then think about all the excitement a cat misses out on. Between family and work and church and school and fun and wanting to be a good person and all of those things… all of these responsibilities and preferences and needs don’t stay balanced.

But the lesson from the cat is clear: have priorities, and focus on one thing at a time. This is easier said than done, The Dad finds.

So, let’s tackle this—one thing at a time.

1. MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS

When you feel overwhelmed, once you recognize that feeling, you need to consciously

stop going down the rabbit hole, which is counterintuitive, because usually our response to being overwhelmed is to try to go faster so that we can get more done. Sometimes we feel incapable of stopping and evaluating what is going on because frustration is controlling us. It takes practice.

As The Dad usually advises, in facing difficult situations, take a moment to test the outcome by saying, “What is the worst thing that can happen?”— and whatever you come up with, The Dad usually banishes it by use of his signature phrase, “They can’t eat you.” This brief exercise in assessing consequences helps you to glimpse the possibilities for failure, and usually you see that it’s not so bad, and you can then work backwards to find an acceptable outcome that avoids that failure anyway. Stopping and evaluating as opposed to allowing the momentum of being overwhelmed will prevent a frenzy of ineffective activity.

2. EVALUATE PRIORITIES

Next, evaluate priorities. You may have to say no to some things, which The Dad has learned is a significant skill, both of judgment and tact. Focus on the most important thing (singular— THE most important thing). Part of being overwhelmed is getting into a thought loop: “I’m so busy that I don’t have time! I have to read this book for class. But I don’t have time to read this book because I have to do my laundry and babysit my younger brother and get a haircut and…” and you can see the hamster wheel of stress build momentum. “I’m overwhelmed” really means “I feel out of control”— part of the antidote is being intentional about what you do next, and actually doing something. Once you get the first taste of being in control back, it will be easier to tackle everything else.

You could probably make a fairly accurate analogy to feeling overwhelmed and The Dad’s favorite basic money management tool, Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball, where you pay off your debts from smallest to largest so that you see momentum. Similarly, when you’re overwhelmed, pick one task, focus on it, and in the meantime don’t make more mistakes that add more to your to-do list like saying yes to one more thing or slacking off and burning time on TikTok. Ramsey couches the Debt Snowball and most of what he talks about in a financial framework, but if you look at money as an asset— money is neither virtuous nor evil, just a tool, and you add the virtue— the same principles apply to energy or time. All of these assets are finite— there’s only a limited supply. But, going back to the 80/20 Rule, when it comes to being overwhelmed, we need to figure out which of our tasks holds the most value. Say you’re getting ready to grab lunch with your friends. On your list: brush your teeth, take a bath, take the trash out. In order of priority, you can go to lunch without taking out the trash, but you shouldn’t skip bathing or brushing your teeth. The Debt Snowball would have you brush your teeth and then take out the trash— in order of smallest time investment— but here, you want to prioritize the bath and teeth because they get you closer to the goal of going to lunch.

Most of us don’t budget our time— The Dad doesn’t, at least not effectively.The Dad runs a very robust calendar but the things that The Dad needs to get done get wedged in between things that are scheduled with other people. This is pretty common. […]

So, let’s talk about balance— The Dad can’t tell you how to achieve it flawlessly, but The Dad can offer some perspective for times when you’re more off balance than on.

It is possible to stack up a half a dozen shoeboxes and stand on them and try to reach something from the top shelf of the closet. As long as it is a moment in time, you can generally get away with it. But you can’t live that way or you will fall. Emotionally, nutritionally, sleep-wise, you can abuse your body for short periods of time— all-nighters or running on junk food, for example— there are crescendos of things that do come up: that's part of life. But it is a precarious place to be, and an ill-advised place to stay. It needs to be temporary.

We can all think of people who don’t appear to be comfortable unless they are uncomfortable— they hit a smooth spot in their lives and they have to add stress. There is an art to becoming capable of enjoying a manageable workload without adding more on.

If you seem to chase the feeling of being overwhelmed, try to think about why you seek out complication. Maybe you want recognition, or you want to prove yourself, or you’re afraid of letting people down. Maybe you’re just bad at estimating how long things take you to do. And sometimes you are in a situation that is designed to be overwhelming, like college, or a transition like the beginning of high school that will naturally be overwhelming. Most of the major transitions in life are accompanied by an at least temporary feeling of being overwhelmed. If you’re in an obvious transition period, or just a temporary trough, and you don’t have a pattern of being overwhelmed, do what you can to eat well, sleep well, and make time for hygiene. But don’t think this is a sustainable or pleasant way of life. There will always be a certain amount of stress, but if you find yourself perpetually overwhelmed, figure out if most of the pressure is internally generated (if it’s not, you have a different problem), whether your problem is a fear of saying no, or whether you are unrealistic about how much time things take for you to do. And it’s hard to be analytical when you are overwhelmed.

There will be times when The Dad will work diligently and at the end of the day, The Dad has more on his to-do list than he did when he woke up! That’s because things keep coming up: people need things from you, there are tasks that have to be done, you continue to say “yes” to impress people (that last part needs its own article!). And not all of those things (or even most of them) are within your control or tasks you have chosen, but in every case, you do get to pick how you respond.

And remember, even if you fall off your shoebox tower of responsibilities, sorely disappoint someone by saying "no," or have to cut a corner here and there to get some sleep, even if all these things happen and more, they can't eat you.