Six Ways I Fought The Overwhelm

The hard thing about advocating against burnout is that you can feel like a fraud when stress creeps in. Isn’t the whole point not to feel overwhelmed? In reality, it's almost impossible to avoid moments of max capacity and denying stress altogether only makes it worse. But there are definitely ways you can manage it, in the moment.

This week, I started with my pressure cooker ready to burst: competing deadlines, shifting priorities, the sense that it was all going to be too much. Here are six things that helped ease the pressure and allowed me to end the week feeling much lighter.

1. Owned It - Overwhelm can feel like a wave rolling over you, blurring everything into one. So on Monday, I called it. I fully acknowledged where I was and that simple act of honesty instantly lifted some of the weight and gave me back a sense of control.

2. Put Stress On Paper - Then I wrote down the things weighing me down. Seeing them clearly made them feel less monstrous. Overwhelm has a way of compounding, but when you get specific, you can cut through the internal noise and start addressing the real issue.

3. Cleared The Clutter - I properly planned my diary instead of letting it run me. I looked at the week holistically, I grouped meetings and blocked out space for doing, and I gave each day a clear shape.

4. Ate The Frog - There were a few major tasks I’d been putting off, so I stopped circling them and just got them done. Clearing them lifted a weight I didn’t realise I was carrying and freed up headspace for everything else.

5. Stopped The Switching - I tried my best to stop context switching. Moving from task to task can trick you into feeling productive, but it often does the reverse - creating more stress, scattering focus and leaving you feeling like nothing is truly finished. Sticking with one thing at a time gave me a greater sense of progress.

6. Gave Myself Some Perspective - I reminded myself that when I’m old and grey, I won’t remember this exact week. What feels heavy now will blur into another patch of life. That perspective helped me release what I was gripping too tightly and focus on the good.