When you have a big project to complete, self-management skills are crucial. Here’s one simple tool that can help you avoid overwhelm paralysis.
It is easy to get lost in overwhelm paralysis when you have a multifaceted project to tackle.
All those moving parts can seem daunting when you focus on the work you must do.
Effective self-management skills are advantageous when dealing with such a circumstance!
I teach my clients a simple planning tool for overcoming overwhelm when they are experiencing overwhelm paralysis.
It’s so simple it’s worth laughing at.
Go ahead and laugh if you want to, but I recommend giving this self-management tool a chance because it works!
It helps you narrow your focus to the smaller parts of your project so you don’t feel overwhelmed by the big picture.
This tool utilizes what’s now the old-school methodology of pen and paper. Here’s how it works:
- Break down the goals for your project into smaller goals.
- From there, decide what goal you would like to accomplish this week.
- Break down the goal for this week into small, bite-sized tasks that take about 15 minutes or less to complete.
- Write out a list of these bite-sized tasks and keep it close so you can check them off as they are completed.
I recommend using the old-fashioned pen-and-paper method because fancy digital planning models can often fan the flame of overwhelm.
It isn’t as easy to keep a digital list on your desk at all times.
This creates a case of out-of-sight-out-of-mind and makes it easy to get sidetracked, as do the many other online distractions that can interfere with getting into a productive flow.
So, let’s apply this tool to a hypothetical situation in which your business or the company you work for is struggling in multiple areas:
Let’s say you have completed steps one and two, and the task you have decided to get done this week is hiring a new person for the department that is struggling the most. So now you need to break this task down into bite-sized tasks that each take 15 minutes or less to complete.
The first small step could be creating an outline of what the ideal candidate would be like.
Next, you can write a more detailed job description.
After that, you can start planning how to fill the position.
Do you want to write and run an ad?
Do you want to make some phone calls to contacts who may know of someone who could be an ideal candidate?
Is there someone you already know who may be a good fit?
Then, the next step would be to take the steps you have decided on.
These are all micro-movements.
Each is a bite-sized task within the more significant project of filling a position.
Now, you can move to the next step, start the process again, and say goodbye to overwhelm paralysis.
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