Too much to deal with

I’ve been reading, researching and thinking a lot about overwhelm.

Overwhelm means to bury or drown beneath a huge mass of something. And frequently ... it’s our work and responsibilities!

When you see the usage of a word over time, it’s interesting to note when it started, peaked and what it is doing today.

Overwhelm as a word was at its peak in the 1800s. Use tapered off in the early to mid 1900s and the word has experienced a great resurgence of use since 2019. 

I wonder why?!

The Cambridge Dictionary says overwhelm is a verb, of force. To defeat someone or something by using a lot of force.

Alternatively, the emotion defines overwhelm as to cause someone to feel sudden, strong emotion.

At its simplest, overwhelm means to have ‘too much to deal with’.

We’ve all experienced this - a time when things felt ‘too much’.

Rather than just ‘sucking it up buttercup’, ‘soldiering on’ or ‘pushing on through’ in a war with our overwhelm, I think we can do something different...

My book ‘Argh!: Too much information, not enough brain’ is out.

I hope it helps you outsmart overwhelm from some different perspectives.

Struggling, juggling, drowning

The struggling, juggling and drowning experiences of overwhelm can become a frequent or familiar part of our life. 

Yes, the world can be an overwhelming place. 

- We might have an EMOTIONAL experience of being overwhelmed;

- We can experience the ‘too much on’ of WORKLOAD that’s overwhelming, too much to do and not enough time in which to do it;

or

- We might feel like we’re submerged under an endless pile of INFORMATION, reports, books and reading.

At other times we can be 'drowning in it’ from a wicked combination of all 3 : emotions, workload and information!

Argh! This is overwhelm.

And it’s not good for us. Burnout and its health issues are waiting when we let overwhelm become too much, too often. 

We need to find ways to acknowledge our emotions, manage our workload … and filter all of that information. 

I believe our overwhelm can be outsmarted. (We don’t want to get rid of it altogether, because it signals important things to us. But wouldn’t it be good to be less affected by it!)


‘Argh!: Too much information, not enough brain’ is my book is out now.

It’s all about how to make sense of overwhelm, and how to outsmart it.

Weapons in the battle of distraction

Imagine wearing a huge motorcycle helmet that blocks the ‘out there’ and let’s you focus on the ‘in here’. 

It has a screen, noise cancelling everything and lets you get on with it, minus distractions. 

This seemingly crazy idea from 2017 was earlier considered by SciFi Pioneer Hugo Gernsback in the 1920s.

‘The Isolator’ as it was called earlier, was designed to block out the distractions that are all too familiar to us. 

But distraction isn’t new and even medieval monks complained that they were distracted and ‘rendered unproductive’. 

Expecting to be able to work or focus undistracted for hours on end is too high a standard to reach for. 

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, there is always distraction available. 

Our own minds (thinking) and our own interruptions (oh look, kitty wants to play) are contributors to what frustrates our expectation for endless focus. 

The most successful modern anti-distraction tool is ‘the timebox’ or Pomodoro. Set a timer and focus until it goes off. 

25, 30, 45, 50 minutes

Try it. I’ll wait here for you.

❓What tools or techniques do you use? 

Back-to-back is bad to worse

If the view is ‘full of colour’ when you look at your diary or schedule, you could be in the back-to-back brigade who don’t get a break. 

The scheduling - and acceptance - of a day of meetings running one into the other, is tiring, inefficient and distracting. 

This Forbes article by Bruce Rogers talks more about how our brains needs a break. 

Our ability to focus lessens as the day goes on and the cognitive load of no, or few, breaks doesn’t serve us either. 

Microsoft recently made changes to their deep down default settings in Outlook for appointment durations and scheduling. You can customize them further for your own preferences and well-being. 

This is in an effort to reduce the rotten fatigue that results from a back-to-back schedule. 

But it also takes individual, leadership and cultural shifts on ‘how we do things around here’ to bring an end to the back-to-back-badge-of-busy. 

Here’s how I roll: 
- Finish early. 
- Schedule breaks
- Block out time. 
- Protect the boundaries. 
- Model better behaviours. 

There are clear ways for us to adopt to get from bad-to-better in the breaks-for-brain game. 

What are you doing to break the back-to-back?

A high potential for ... burnout

Why is it some people working with some leaders in some environments experience burnout ... yet other don’t?

This difference is stark and at the heart of why some things fire us up ... and others burn us out. 

In this Forbes article by Alain Hunkins, it’s revealed that “engaged employees who have job flexibility tend to work more hours per week than the average employee, while reporting higher wellbeing.

“When people feel inspired, motivated and supported in their work, they do more work — and that work is significantly less stressful on their overall health and wellbeing.”

This finding was echoed in Gallup research. 

Review the article for :
🔥 the 5 causes of burnout
🔥 the 5 signs of burnout 
and, importantly, 
🔥 the 9 solutions to burnout. 

And if you’re a high potential performer with a strong work ethic, bookmark the article and keep an eye on the flames: you could be prone to burning out more than firing up.