Several writer friends have mentioned to me recently that they're feeling
overwhelmed. I certainly know the feeling! I'm in a similar state this week – last week, I did very little work as I was away for three days and then had my driving theory test to revise for and take on the Friday (I passed, though didn't need the formula for stopping distances that I'd memorised...!)
I planned to catch up over the weekend
but my husband's come down with a stomach bug, and so I've been doing a lot more childcare than anticipated.
This is a three step technique I first came across from David Allen (who wrote Getting Things Done). It's actually a technique you can use any time you're dealing with a long to-do list ... but I think it's particularly
useful when you're feeling overwhelmed, as if you're like me, you'll find it easier to be ruthless then.
First, get your calendar or diary in front of you.
Then, write down a list of tasks that you want to get done over the next
couple of weeks.
For everything in your diary, and every task on your list, ask yourself "Ditch, delay, or delegate?" (In that order.)
Can you ditch the task
altogether?
If you can't ditch it, can you delegate it to someone else? (This might be a colleague, family member, a paid cleaner, etc.)
If it can't be ditched or delegated, can it at least be delayed?
Here are a few examples from my week:
Ditch:
- Exercising on my cross-trainer, which I've been doing every other day since the start of January -- I've been sorry to cut this out, but it won't hurt to skip it for a few days.
- My Writers' Huddle writing
hour – I was planning to do that this Thursday evening, but I've cancelled it. Again, I was sorry to do so, but the writing hours aren't especially well attended (I was the only person in the chatroom last week!) and I know people will manage fine without it.
- This Monday's blog post – again, not an easy decision, but I figured it really wouldn't
make a big difference to anyone!
Delegate:
- Some of the childcare: my mother-in-law was here at the weekend and took the kids out to the playground to give me a break (which was much
appreciated)!
Delay:
- Working on the non-fiction book I'm writing. My goal was to get the draft finished by the end of February, but I may have to shift that back a little!
- Tidying the kids' craft stuff. It's a complete mess, but it's in a room of the house we can easily turn a blind eye to ... and it can certainly wait another week or two.
- Meeting up with a couple of friends at the pub ... one couldn't make it anyway, so we agreed to rearrange in a few weeks'
time.
And here are some of the things I've kept in my week because they're more important to me right now than all of the above:
- Getting enough sleep
- Time to catch up with writing in the journals I keep for my kids.
- Time to play with the kids (baking, Hama beads, Kitty's new Nerf bow-and-arrow...)
- Time to write the sales page for something new that I'm
really excited about sharing with you in a couple of weeks.
- Downtime! Mostly, spent reading The Betrayals (see below) and watching season 4 of The 100 (which I bought on DVD about a week before Amazon finally put it on Prime for free....)
When you're overwhelmed, something has to give. It's better to make a conscious decision up-front than to try to juggle everything, only to end up dropping something truly important to you.
If you're overwhelmed right now, what could you ditch, delay, or delegate -- in order to preserve
the things that are most important right now?
(Don't forget that sufficient rest and downtime are important, and that you absolutely deserve
both.)
