Читать книгу Start Right Where You Are - Sam Bennett - Страница 18

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HAVE YOU NOTICED that there’s a worldwide game of “overwhelmed poker” going on? It sounds like this:

Person 1: “I’m so overwhelmed. I had to get up at 6 AM to work on my presentation and then corral the kids, race to my client meeting, get across town for a luncheon, and now I won’t get home until after 7 PM.”

Person 2: “Oh, me, too. I’m sooooooo busy it’s really overwhelming. I actually had to get up at 5 AM to finish my new client proposal, and then I had all these meetings, and then of course there’s the big project I’m in charge of, and I can’t possibly leave work until at least 8 PM.”

Person 3: “You two are so lucky. I’m so much busier than both of you. . .”

It’s time to drop the glorification of overwhelm. Busy is not a virtue. You don’t get bonus points for being stressed out, exhausted, and depleted. Plus I think you’re short-changing yourself by using overwhelmed as a catchall word.

Drop the glorification of overwhelm. Busy is not a virtue.

Saying that you feel overwhelmed is about as useful as telling the doctor that you feel tired. It’s not that it’s not true, it’s just that there are too many root causes of tiredness for it to be helpful in diagnosis. There are a lot of different ways to be overwhelmed, and each of them needs a slightly different cure.

Here are nine of the ways I’ve found:

• too many ideas

• too many half-finished projects

• too many intermediate steps

• actually, underwhelmed

• buying groceries at the Quickie Mart

• Cantsayno syndrome

• too much time / no deadline

• time boulders

• overwrought because of chronic overcomplication

In the following sections we’ll look at each of these one at a time.

LITTLE CHANGES ACTION STEP: Stop saying you’re overwhelmed. If you must refer to your activity level, at least try something a bit more amusing. My grandmother used to say she was “busier than a one-armed paper hanger.” Or make up an expression of your own, like “Too many baskets, only one burro.” Take responsibility by saying, “I’ve chosen to keep my schedule quite full this week,” or admit that you kind of relish it by saying, “I’m in the deep end of the pool with no floaties this week, and while I’m having fun paddling, it’s not leaving me time for anything extra.”

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