Points of Interest

Reduce Overwhelm By Doing What’s In Front Of You First

by Hutt Bush

A wonderfully accomplished client and I today discussed a useful strategy for dealing with overwhelm at work.  Do what’s in front of you, and put the the rest on hold for now.

This approach is called compartmentalization in psychological terms: to create a way of thinking that effectively walls off some areas from others. In moderation, this can be a useful strategy.

Here’s how to compartmentalize in a very practical way: Write down the top three things you want to accomplish each day – and then stick to them. At the end of a week, you’ll have accomplished somewhere close to 15 of the most important things.

Fundamental to the approach is to put the other items on hold while you work on your top three priorities. That doesn’t mean to avoid doing the others, but simply to work on what’s in front of you that you have decided is the most important. Working on what’s most important and minimizing the distraction of worry about other things is a process that almost always enhances productivity and reduces overwhelm.

Give this strategy a try for a few days. It’s not perfect, but it definitely helps.

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