Many of us find it difficult to manage all of our thoughts throughout the day. At the end of the day, we end up feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. The cycle of constantly feeling behind on your work and stressed out can become overwhelming and is extremely unhealthy.
Why Being Overwhelmed Makes You Less Productive
By being overwhelmed, you actually end up being less productive. Oftentimes we find ourselves so stressed out by all we have to do, we can’t focus on one singular task. This leads us to not start any tasks at all and get very little done. In turn, this only worsens the feeling of being unproductive and overwhelmed.
So, what’s the solution?
Here’s a list of the strategies I use to make my days more productive and less stressful.
- Make a “To-do” list.
The first thing you can do to organize your daily thoughts is make a “to-do” list. Sometimes, by simply writing down the things we need to do can bring more relief. Physically being able to see all your thoughts on paper can help you realize maybe you don’t have as much to do as you thought. At the minimum, this will at least help you organize your tasks and get them out of your mind.
2. Set Daily Goals
Setting goals for the day can help you only clearly establish what you want to achieve that day. This will also help you focus on the most importatn tasks for the time being, so that you accomplish the work you need to accomplish.
A strategy I like to use while creating my daily goals is to choose one small task I want to accomplish, one medium task, and one bigger task. Once you finish these tasks, you will feel more accomplished and maybe even end up getting more done than you thought you could.
3. Dedicate a Chunk of Your Time to Each Task
If you have a lot to do but only a limited amount of time in the day, dedicate a certain amount of your time to this task. For example, let’s say you have a big exam coming up but only have three hours of free time a day. You could spend all this time studying for your exam, but you’ll likely feel much more burned out and exhausted afterwards. So, instead of this, what you can do is say you’ll spend one of the three hours you have everyday studying for your exam. This way, you’ll be making constant progress but not overworking yourself as this could end up being counterproductive.
The main goal of all of these strategies is to help yourself feel relief from everything you need to do. We all have busy lives and at times it can feel like we have work on top of work that needs to be done. There will always be work to be done and all we can do is learn how to better manage ourselves and our time to complete these tasks successfully. On top of this, we want to reduce our stress as much as possible