Managing Overwhelm
It often feels like no matter what we do, there’s always too much on our plate to juggle. It can become incredibly overwhelming when the amount of time you have in a day, week, or month simply doesn’t align with the number of things you’ve got on your list. But none of us are alone in feeling this way!
People you reach out to for advice will often share the same mantra: prioritize! Prioritize! You don’t have to do it all! But what does that really mean? What happens when it really feels like you do have to do it all?
There’s a powerful, succinct metaphor that can help us prioritize our daily, weekly, and monthly tasks without forcing you to eliminate tasks entirely: a glass ball/plastic ball metaphor.
Put simply, some to-do’s are plastic balls, and some are glass balls. If you drop a plastic ball, it might crack, get scraped, or bounce around, but it won’t break. However, if you drop a glass ball, it will likely shatter. And these balls are the tasks on your to-do list.
For our purposes, let’s say you’ve got a big project at work due at the end of the week, you have to cook dinner for your family tomorrow night, you need to go grocery shopping today, and you promised your friend you would help them move. Every person is different, and we all may designate these 4 tasks differently, but in general, the consensus would likely be:
Helping my friend move: plastic ball
Your friend will understand that you’ve got too much else going on to devote any useful amount of time to helping them move. They likely weren’t relying solely on you, and can get the move done without you. Maybe you can help next week!
Big project at work: glass ball
If you don’t get the project done, there could be real consequences. Understandable.
Cooking dinner tomorrow: glass ball
Now, maybe there is someone else who can take over the cooking or takeout is an option, in which case you can swap this as a plastic ball. However, if you’re the only one who can cook for your family, they need to eat – thus, glass ball.
Grocery shopping today: plastic ball
Unless your fridge is totally empty and you have no time to go shopping tomorrow, this is a plastic ball. You can either shop tomorrow, order groceries online for delivery or quick pickup, or skip the shop altogether and cook with the ingredients left in the fridge.
These are all pretty generic tasks, so remember that you can label glass and plastic balls for tasks as big or small as you need to keep your to-do list manageable and most importantly, not overwhelming. It might even be helpful to visually categorize your tasks this way, because we all know that as soon as that overwhelming wave of “I have no time!” starts to hit, all productivity goes out the window.
Above all else, prioritize your own well-being as best you can, however you can. You can’t get anything done without fueling yourself!
