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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is about how to cope with being overwhelmed. By

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Speaker 1: recognizing the exact nature of your overwhelming situation, you can

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Speaker 1: take steps to make life feel more in control. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip comes from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans's new book

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Speaker 1: Designing Your Work Life, the follow up to Design Your Life.

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Speaker 1: This book teaches how to use design principles to improve

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Speaker 1: your time at the office. We've probably all been in

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Speaker 1: bad jobs, but in many cases Burnett and Evans right,

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Speaker 1: people find themselves in jobs that they generally like. It's

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Speaker 1: just that circumstances are stressful. These stressful circumstances come in

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Speaker 1: different flavors, which Burnett and Evans call the hydra overwhelmed,

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Speaker 1: the happy overwhelmed, and the hyper overwhelm. They require different

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Speaker 1: steps to mitigate. The hydra overwhelm takes its name from

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Speaker 1: the multi headed Greek monster that grew new heads every

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Speaker 1: time one was chopped off. Perhaps this feels a bit

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Speaker 1: like your life if you work in a place that

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Speaker 1: has been made lean to the point where everybody is

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Speaker 1: doing the equivalent of two to three jobs. Maybe you're

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Speaker 1: reporting to too many managers or are running too many

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Speaker 1: projects simultaneously. Maybe you're having to pull information from too

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Speaker 1: many sources, or you have to use legacy systems that

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Speaker 1: are cumbersome and badly designed. The happy overwhelm is when

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Speaker 1: you just have too much of a good thing going on.

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Speaker 1: You've volunteered for all the cool, shiny stuff. You love

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Speaker 1: all of it, but you are one person with twenty

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Speaker 1: four hours in a day, and it is physically impossible

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Speaker 1: to work for all of them. And finally, the hyper

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Speaker 1: overwhelm happens in startup situations where there are no organizational

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Speaker 1: norms and very little support. It's not that you're reporting

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Speaker 1: to two different managers. It's that you really aren't sure

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Speaker 1: who your manager is because you're growing so fast that

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Speaker 1: there's no organization chart. Anyway, when you find yourself overwhelmed,

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Speaker 1: ask yourself if it's a hydra, happy or hyper kind

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Speaker 1: of overwhelm, and then you can figure out what to do.

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Speaker 1: If it's hydra, you can either drop tasks or ask

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Speaker 1: permission to drop ones that are hurting your productivity. In

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Speaker 1: the permission conversations be specific. Brunette and Evans right say

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Speaker 1: that you will be more productive if you can use

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Speaker 1: the twenty eighteen version of your software versus the nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight version that you're stuck with, or if you

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Speaker 1: can write a monthly report instead of a weekly one,

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Speaker 1: or if you can split your clients into a's and bs,

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Speaker 1: with the a's getting responses in twenty four hours and

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Speaker 1: the b's getting responses in ninety six hours. Most managers

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Speaker 1: are happy to have people propose solutions to their problems,

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Speaker 1: so you don't need to fear this conversation. As for

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Speaker 1: happy overwhelm, well, the problem here is that you may

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Speaker 1: have a tougher boss yourself. You've chosen to do all

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Speaker 1: these amazing things, and you are now paying the price.

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Speaker 1: The solution here is often to start delegating. Figure out

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Speaker 1: which of these tasks you are uniquely qualified to do

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Speaker 1: and which can be given to someone else. Maybe with

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Speaker 1: you editing or approving at work, you can ask for

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Speaker 1: more resources, people, budgets and so forth. At home, maybe

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Speaker 1: you can hire a cleaning service, send out the laundry,

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Speaker 1: or hire a personal assistant. The point is to multiply

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Speaker 1: your existing hours, because you are not going to magically

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Speaker 1: get more, Finally, for the hyper overwhelmed, Burnett and Evans

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Speaker 1: recommend thinking of the situation as a marathon rather than

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Speaker 1: a sprint. Run the mile you're in, take care of yourself,

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Speaker 1: making sure that your non negotiables like sleep and exercise happen,

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Speaker 1: and finally, change your story rather than I'm frantic because

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Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm doing, you could repeat

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Speaker 1: it's so exciting to be figuring this all out. Positive

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Speaker 1: thoughts go a long way in all of these situations.

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Speaker 1: Check in a few weeks later to see if the

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Speaker 1: situation seems more under control. Are the steps you're taking working?

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Speaker 1: If so, great, If not, figure out what else you

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Speaker 1: need to change. Things can be overwhelming for a while,

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Speaker 1: but you don't want them to be overwhelming permanently. In

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Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's

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Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd

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Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,

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Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's B the number

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Speaker 1: four then breakfast po. You can also shoot me an

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Speaker 1: email at Before Breakfast Podcast at iHeartMedia dot com that

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Speaker 1: before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much, should I look forward to staying in touch.

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Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

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