How To Manage Your Days Without Feeling Overwhelmed.
As a business owner (and mama, wife, puppy owner – and the list goes on!) it can be a struggle to manage all the things we have to do in a day. For me, I tend to fall victim to overwhelm fairly easily, so it is so important that I have a structure that works for me, and that I stick to, to help me with the daily juggle (yes - the juggle is real!).
Over the years I have tried just about every combination under the sun for the ‘perfect’ day. We all know the one – that day when everything happens the way we want it to; the days where we are perfectly zen and completely productive, and the days where everything on the to-do list is ticked off.
Well….those days are not realistic (for me, at least!), and I have come to accept that. I have, though, managed to develop a plan that works for me. I have also done away with the expectations of perfection, and I readily and happily accept that rarely will everything on the to-do list get ticked off – and that’s ok. Letting go of the unrealistic expectations has been a game changer for me, both in life and in my business.
Here are my tips on how to manage your days without feeling overwhelmed:
Plan the day before
Without fail, each afternoon/early evening I look ahead and plan for my tomorrow. This involves rolling over the items on today’s list that I didn’t get to (without the guilt) and running through my calendar and appointments to make sure I am prepped and ready to go.
I print out my calendar for the next day, make any notes, and satisfy myself that I haven’t missed anything, and there are no scheduling clashes.
2. Pack the school bags the day before
Not business-related, but life-related – so it’s important! I have a schedule on the board (ok, I have several schedules, and there is a kids’ school schedule there too). I run my eye over the schedule the evening before and pack the bags accordingly. Ballet shoes; library bags; reading folders; soccer boots; hats. Whatever it is, I make sure they’re in the bags the night before.
I always do the school lunches first thing in the morning, but the pressure is off because I know that everything else is packed and ready to go. Truth moment – I enjoy packing the school lunches in the mornings! I get up super early, and my mornings are so calm and peaceful (before everyone else in the house is up). That time is precious to me, and I get a real sense of satisfaction prepping the school lunches in the mornings because this is a quiet, calm, peaceful time, and I go at my own pace (and yes, I get that I am probably on my own with this one – but hey, I can live with that!).
3. Miracle Morning routine
I find that spending some time first thing in the morning setting expectations for the day; journaling; mediating, and stretching, really set me up for a successful day. I cannot recommend this approach more highly! This has been a real game-changer for me in terms of mindset. This routine, whether I get through this in 20 minutes, or 30 minutes, doesn’t matter – it’s the process that I find so valuable.
4. Manage the Inbox
My email inbox can bring me unstuck and land me in overwhelm if I let it! I have come to learn that sitting and dealing with emails 2 or 3 times a day is the best way for me to manage the constant influx of emails. Productivity can take a real dive if I go down the rabbit hole of addressing every email as and when they arrive. So I don’t do this anymore.
Two or three times a day is when I sit, read and deal with emails. I have found that this keeps my productivity, and my mindset, on track.
5. Time blocking
One of the most important things to help me avoid overwhelm in my business is time blocking in my calendar. I block time to work through my inbox; dive into deep-thinking work; take a lunch break and go for a walk (yep, this one is fairly new and by far the bravest thing I have done in a long time!); allocate work to my team (we use Monday.com as a platform for task allocation and communicating, it’s brilliant!), and business admin and accounts.
Time blocking has allowed me to rest easy knowing that I have allocated time to get everything done. It means that I don’t have those stomach-sinking feelings anymore, and panic thinking ‘have I forgotten something?!’. I know I haven’t forgotten anything, because I have it all covered in time blocking.
I am not suggesting by any means that I have the perfect answer or the perfect combination for managing our days as business owners. But I can say that I have managed a combination that works for me right now.
My best advice?
Keep trying different things until you land on an approach/combination that works for you. And go easy on yourself when things don’t go according to plan – because life will happen and things will come up that you haven’t planned for, and this needs to be ok. I have found that if I am kind to myself when this happens, rather than being brutal and having impossibly high expectations of myself, I am better able to tackle what comes my way.