After my kids had been off school for over a week with a cold, I finally sat back down at my desk ready to work. And it wasn’t long before I started to panic because I feel like I couldn’t get enough done in the time I have. I felt so behind, my processes seem too slow, and it feel like I am spinning my wheels. As the minutes ticked by a pit of anxiety starts to get bigger and bigger until I am forced to ask myself – why am I not loving something I usually love…

Sometimes I find its caused by lots of little things I think I have to do, cluttering my mind and floating around on an invisible and infinite to-do list. But things in your mind always look different on a page. One of my close friends shared the Eisenhower matrix with me – the process of dividing tasks into 4 categories – do, schedule, delegate, delete. So this is my first stop on the overwhelm

addressing train – do the Eisenhower matrix and get a clear view of what is actually on your plate. 9/10 I have things on my plate that are completely pointless and I don’t need so its a quick win to remove those and clean up your priorities.

Sometimes this feeling of overwhelm comes from a lack of structure and no end point. Maybe I haven’t set a target product count, maybe your vision or reason for why you are building a business has become a bit foggy, maybe you just don’t even know where you are in the grand scheme of your plan. So this is what I do next, sit down and brainstorm where I am, where I am headed and when this current phase of what I’m working on will reach a conclusion. When you know where you are going, its a lot easier to see the light in the progress you have made.

Sometimes this feeling of overwhelm comes from tasks not being broken down – and sitting a chunk of work that feels limitless and impossible to accomplish. But the thing is, you can really tackle anything if you break it down enough. This is one of the reasons I love and developed the product plan for digital product sellers – the art of breaking down the product creation into a store where you can grab a tiny piece and run with it even if you only have a small pocket of time. Small pieces build skyscrapers.