Simplifying things

Simplifying things

The daily things we do in life could get overwhelming at times – Even the happy moments. This is common in and nothing to be ashamed of; the feeling of having ‘too much’ in our hands especially the moment we arrive at work, and notice an enormous number of emails right after a weekend well spent.

Sometimes, this overwhelming feeling could be as simple as having to experience negativity while idling and scrolling away at social media platforms.

But for the most part, these sense of being overwhelmed stems from anxiety and peer pressure. After all, always see things, intentionally or not, that makes us ‘compare’ ourselves to other people which can lead to thoughts like “why haven’t I achieved this?” and the likes.

So, what can we do when faced with this kind of ‘overwhelming’ emotions and sense of dread?

We’ve covered how the magic of gratitude offers us not only a better perspective of life, but also better quality of life so now we’ll discuss how simplifying things can help you at overwhelming situations.

Slow down and stay at your lane

Careers are stressful. Work is stressful. Surviving on wage is stressful. For the most part, we work because it is necessary to living and supporting ourselves as well as our families and there is nothing wrong with that. However, because of this, we also tend to lose sight of what we are exactly working for aside from these living necessities and this leads to expectations beyond our means and capabilities.

We get envious of co-workers that flaunt their new car or bag. We crave the latest in consumer tech. While yearning for these things could make for a nice goal, the thoughts of how we can get these can become overwhelming and it’s always important to keep in mind not to lose sight on the important things and more meaningful moments in our lives. By trying so hard in catching up with the trends out of frustration, what did we lose? What did we have to give up for these? Are those overtimes and extra hours worth it when you’ve been missing a lot on quality time with your family and loved ones?

Again, it’s never wrong to aspire for greater things and having goals but know how to properly manage your time, expectations and commitment with other people.

Stay in your lane. Life is not a race.

Commitments and responsibilities

Sometimes, having too many commitments can be the reason of feeling overwhelmed, and this could also be unintentional at times. We could be simply become too busy getting caught up in work and life that we forget prior commitments and appointments so we just nod at newer ones that we encounter, until we realize that these have piled up and now, we’re overwhelmed because it’s not until it’s too late that we see this error, or until we realized that we’ve run out of time of ourselves.

Understanding these commitments with people and communities helps us sort them in orders of priorities as well as opening awareness of how much we can exactly handle and when to say “no” and it is important to understand that we can’t always say “yes” to everyone all of the time.

Just think of it this way; If you simply kept on saying “yes” out of fear of disappointing people, these things would pile up until eventually, it’s now hard for you to get things done and keep everything in check. And when you fail to do things as you’ve initially promised by simply saying “yes” out of fear, you end up disappointing people more simply because you’ve let them down for not being able to do so when they expected it.

Managing commitments is just as important as managing our responsibilities.

Procrastination and cramming

We all have our ‘lazy days’. These are the times when we simply run out of creative ideas or somewhat ‘don’t feel like it’ for various reasons. While it could not hurt to take a pause from everything and entertain the idea of procrastination from time to time, (as we all needed a break anyway), practicing this in excess is a dangerous pitfall to feeling overwhelmed later on especially when deadlines are nearing.

Manage your time and schedules. And sometimes, having frequent, short breaks are better than wasting an entire day of doing nothing.

Completing things one at a time

By far, this would be the most important step in simplifying things when we become overwhelmed – Finishing things one at a time. Start by organizing your schedules and ordering the priority of your to-do list with the most important on top, followed by tasks with imminent deadlines. Work on this list one by one and do not attempt to complete everything at once. Even if you’ve only managed to complete a handful within the day, it makes a lot of difference on the long run.

By trying to work on everything simultaneously, we become more stressed and the sense of being overwhelmed only intensifies.