The Skill That Makes Overwhelm Impossible
And no, it's not "break it into smaller pieces"
What Overwhelm Looks Like
I need to buy Christmas presents.
I need to have a working stream by Thursday this week
I have nonstop meetings for a type of work Iโve not done before for the 3 days leading into Thanksgivingโone even at 4:30PM Wednesday, so clearly I will not be getting that โhead out early for the holidayโ time like most.
I need to fix my broken Etsy lamp
I need to set up my kittyโs new feeder because hers broke
I need to do laundry
I need to find more potential cash buyers for my condo and then switch gears to remodeling if that doesnโt work
I need to change my address everywhere
And thatโs all just the tip of the iceberg of things I need to do. Sorry if I stressed you out just telling you about it.
IโM OVERWHELMED.
But I also got A TON done this weekend:
All clean laundry is put away.
The final remnants of my final initial kitchen cleaning put away.
I threw out the last of the boxes (aside from the newly unpacked further down this list)
My home is spotlessly clean
Iโve kept up with my daily routine things like this newsletter
I unpacked all Stream Room boxes
I sorted Stream Room things into piles
I put a VERY heavy thing together by myself (pretty sure I was balancing 70-80lbs on one small point on the desk while I reached to screw it on safely with one hand)
I organized the large items in the Stream Room, and after sleeping on it, reorganized it a different way
I organized all the main electronics and then reorganized a different way
I figured out the best way to plug things in, and then moved the coax (the internet guy was nice enough to open up all the coax ports for me. theyโre not all always live)
I got all my major electronics on stands or stable spots and functioning together again and I could do a bare minimum stream right now if I wanted to
But if you asked me Friday if I thought Iโd actually have a bare minimum working stream by the end of the weekend, I wouldnโt believe you. I was STRESSED. But I didnโt let that win.
How?
Remember where we left off in yesterday newsletter?
You are lying to yourself. And the easy answer to stop lying to yourself is to:
ADAPT.
What Adapting Looks Like
When you think of adapting, you likely think of responding quickly to change by thinking fast:
By making decisions.
But making decisions is the stress. Itโs where the overwhelm is from. When things are straightforward, theyโre not nearly as stressful. Itโs why many people repeat grocery orders and recipes, hobbies, vacations, routines. All of it stems from limiting our decisions.
And that can be a very smart thing to do. Itโs called limiting โdecision fatigue".โ
Like Steve Jobs wearing the black turtleneck and jeans every day.
These decisions are the opposite of adapting. Theyโre where the lies come from.
We build routines around us that arenโt the best for us, they are simply the easiest for us.
But what if we didnโt have to rely on only repeating ourselves as the only way to combat overwhelm.
What else is adapting outside of just โfast decision-making?โ
If we break adapting down to itโs definition, it is: โto make fit (as for a new use) often by modificationโ
So if we limit our decisions to โmaking this thing work for a new useโ rather than โevery possible decision in the world,โ we can come to a conclusion:
That the thing weโre adapting already had a use. It already worked. And we just need to find its new fit. A fit that also already has an answer.
We can remove the weight of decision-making by accepting that everything already has an answer.
Whenever I start a project, I go into it with this in mind. Sometimes, things feel impossible because of time, but thatโs the only constraint that ever truly threatens me.
Everything else is merely a question of what knowledge/resources Iโm missing.
So, since this is a paid article where we break things down into real actionable steps, what does this look like in practice?