Overwhelmed? Try the 515 Method
If your to-do list is too long and no matter how much you accomplish it seems to be growing exponentially. You may want to give up, hide under the covers, run away, or eat all the Oreos to escape the overwhelm. I get it, I have been there, and I still go there.
The problem with overwhelm is that once our brains get going down that path it can be a downward spiral. You know what I mean……your mind starts racing with the million things you need to get done, even listing them out and exaggerating them a bit to add to the drama, then it will start to elaborate on how you don’t have enough time, and on and on it goes. Once it gets going it’s hard to shut it down.
The good news is, there’s nothing wrong with you. That’s just your human brain doing what human brains do. When we start to focus on how much we have to do, our brain goes to work finding evidence of how much we have to do. When we focus on how we don’t have enough time, our brain goes to work finding evidence that we in fact don’t have enough time.
It’s an amazing function of our brain call the Reticular Activating System (RAS). I won’t bore you with all the neuroscience, but in a nutshell it’s just like I described above. What we focus on, our subconscious brain begins to filter for exactly that.
Ever notice how when you’re thinking negative thoughts, all of a sudden everything seems negative and a long line of other negative thoughts come to the negative Nancy party? (no offense Nancy) Or the reverse, you’re feeling great, thinking positive thoughts and everything else seems to be great too, lots of other positive thoughts show up.
Let me give you one more really clear example. You know how when you buy a new car and start driving it and all of a sudden you see that make, model and color everywhere? That’s your RAS at work filtering for you.
I realize if you’re overwhelmed, I’ve already carried on far to long, so I’ll get right to the 515 Method so you can get out of the overwhelm spin.
Here it is:
5 - five minute reset, deep breaths, stretch, sit quietly, scream into a pillow, whatever works for you
1 - choose one task, only one from your to-do list (I choose the easiest if I can, gives me a quick win)
5 - commit to five minutes of focused time on that one task
How it works: First you're interrupting the RAS negative spiral, second you’re narrowing your focus to one task which instantly feels more doable than the whole list, and third it’s only five minutes so it feels relatively easy to commit to five minutes, this gets you into action and creating momentum to get back to the positive side of the RAS.
