4 steps to gain control of business tasks when feeling overwhelmed

Sometimes plans get derailed because life happens, and suddenly you have less time to finish what’s on your to-do list. When you’ve planned everything out meticulously, it can feel quite overwhelming when something comes up and messes with your schedule.

The good news is that it’s far easier to refine a plan you already have than to craft a plan out of thin air when you’re feeling rushed.

Take these steps to figure out what to do when there isn't enough time to do everything:

1 – Take some deep breaths

When we’re feeling stressed out, there’s a part of our nervous system that kicks in that makes it hard to think clearly – because your body prepares for a physical threat.

So instead of diving straight into tackling your tasks, take a moment to take some deep breaths and calm down. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to take long – it can be as little as 20-60 seconds.

Once your nervous system calms down, you’ll be able to think more clearly, make better decisions and fewer mistakes.

2 – Get clear

How much time do you have available to you?

What resources do you have at your disposal – is there someone you can delegate to?

What’s your capacity – how much focus and energy do you have?

Knowing these things can help you make a more realistic plan *and* it makes you more picky about the tasks you decide to take on.

3 – Find the most important tasks

If your tasks aren’t written out, I highly recommend making a list.

Once you can physically see the tasks in front of you, it’s a lot easier to recognize which tasks are the most important ones and which ones can either be moved to a different day or even be taken off the list entirely.

If you feel uncomfortable taking anything off at this point, I suggest you make a new list where the most important ones are at the top (in order of importance), and then you list the less important tasks under them (also in order of importance). Then, fold the list so that you can only see the top tasks for now. If you finish them, you can continue on to the other side and knock off as many as you have time for.

4 – Don’t forget this

We tend to be really hard on ourselves when we can’t finish what we’ve planned, but in the end our plans are simply wishful thinking of what our day or week will look like – life actually decides how it’ll shake out because circumstances and our capacity changes.

Give yourself props for what you did get done.