The Overwhelm Trap

I had a lot of things to get done. None of them were particularly big. In fact, some were probably tasks I could finish in 10 or 15 minutes. But that wasn't how I was looking at them. I was looking at the quantity. There was this long list in my head, and somehow I was also making each task feel bigger than it probably was. The more I thought about everything I needed to get done, the more I kept coming back to the same question:

When am I going to find the time to do all of this?

And the more I thought about it, the more overwhelmed I felt.

So naturally, I did something very productive.....I checked my email.

Then I started scrolling for a little while. Nothing intentional. I think I was simply looking for a break from the feeling of having so much to do. About 30 minutes later, I looked up.

And that's when the irony hit me.

I had just spent 30 minutes avoiding things I thought I didn't have time to do.

Those same 30 minutes probably would have been enough to check two or three things off the list that was making me feel so overwhelmed.

That made me stop and wonder: Was the problem really the amount of work? Or was it the way I was looking at it?

Because I wasn't thinking, This will take 10 minutes. That might take 15. This one can wait until tomorrow.

I was seeing all of it at once.

"I have so much to do. How am I ever going to get through all of this?"

The individual tasks weren't overwhelming. The story I had created around all of them together was.

Sometimes the size of the problem changes depending on how we look at it.

When everything starts feeling like one giant problem, it is easy to look for an escape. Check email. Scroll for a few minutes. Get another cup of coffee. Maybe even reorganize the list instead of actually doing something on it.

I've certainly done all of those.

For a moment, they give me a break from the feeling of being overwhelmed. But when I come back, the list is still there, and now I have even less time to deal with it.

That's the trap.

The more overwhelmed I feel, the more tempted I am to avoid the work. And the more I avoid the work, the more overwhelming it becomes.

What if I don't need to tackle the whole list?

I've been trying to ask myself a different question when I catch this happening:

"What is the minimum effort needed to move one thing forward?"

Not, How am I going to finish everything?

Just, What can I move forward right now?

That email I have been putting off might take five minutes. The form might take ten. The phone call I've been avoiding might take two. And sometimes, once I finish one small thing, something changes.

The list hasn't disappeared. I haven't magically created more hours in the day. But it doesn't feel quite as heavy anymore.

Maybe I don't always need more time. I need to make the problem smaller.

This is something I see in coaching conversations too. We can become so focused on the size of everything in front of us that taking even the first step starts to feel difficult.

Sometimes the shift isn't about becoming more productive or finding the perfect system. It is simply about noticing how we are framing the problem and making it small enough to begin.

I am still going to have days when the list feels too long.

But the next time I catch myself staring at everything I need to do, and then reaching for my phone, I want to remember those 30 minutes.

Maybe I don't need to figure out the whole list.

Shrink the problem. Pick one thing. Start there.