Chapter 7

A Practical Plan for When You Feel Overwhelmed

by Peter Bregman

We’ve all experienced it: that feeling that we’ve got so much to do that there’s no chance we’ll get it all done. And certainly not done on time. Right now, I’m feeling completely overwhelmed by my to-do list.

Here’s the crazy part. I just spent the last two days trying to work without actually working. I start something but get distracted by the Internet. Or a phone call. Or an e-mail. At a time when I need to be most efficient, I’ve become less efficient than ever.

You’d think it would be the opposite—that when we have a lot to do, we’d become very productive in order to get it done. Sometimes that happens.

But often, when there’s so much competing for our attention, we don’t know where to begin—so we don’t begin anywhere.

Next time you find yourself in this situation, try this approach:

1. Write down everything you have to do on a piece of paper. Resist the urge to use technology for this task. Why? I’m not sure, but somehow writing on paper—and then crossing things out—creates momentum.
2. Spend 15 minutes completing as many of the easiest, fastest tasks on your list as you can. Make your quick phone calls. Send your short e-mails. Don’t worry about whether these are the most important tasks on your list. You’re moving. The goal is to cross off as many tasks as possible in the shortest time. Use a timer to keep you focused.
3. Work on the most daunting task for the next 35 minutes without interruption. Turn off your phone, close all the unnecessary windows on your computer, and choose the most challenging task on your list, the one that instills the most stress or is the highest priority. Then work on it and only it—without hesitation or distraction—for 35 minutes.
4. Take a break for 10 minutes, then begin the cycle again. After 35 minutes of focused work, take a break. Then start the hourlong process over again, beginning with the 15 minutes of quick actions.

“Thirty years ago,” Anne Lamott writes in her book Bird by Bird, “my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

That’s it. Bird by bird, starting with a bunch of easy birds to help you feel accomplished and then tackling a hard one to gain serious traction and reduce your stress level. All timed.

Working within a specific and limited time frame is important because the race against time keeps you focused. When stress is generalized and diffuse, it’s hard to manage. Using a short time frame actually increases the pressure but keeps your effort specific and particular to a single task. That increases good, motivating stress while reducing negative, disconcerting stress. So the fog of feeling overwhelmed dissipates, and forward movement becomes possible.

In practice, I’m finding that although I make myself work at least the full 35 minutes, I don’t always stop when the 35 minutes of hard work are over, because I’m in the middle of something and I have traction. On the other hand, though it’s tempting, I don’t exceed the 15 minutes of easy, fast work. When the timer stops, so do I, immediately transitioning to the hard work.

Maybe this method has been working simply because it’s novel for me and, like a new diet, offers some structure to motivate my effort. Today, though, it doesn’t matter, because it’s a useful tool for me. And I’ll keep using it until I don’t need it or it stops working.

Am I still stressed? Sure. But overwhelmed? Much less so. Because I’m crossing things off my list and getting somewhere on my little tasks as well as my big ones, bird by bird.

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Peter Bregman is a strategic adviser to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.

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Adapted from content posted on hbr.org on September 23, 2010.