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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to cope with being overwhelmed.

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

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Speaker 1: can take steps to make life feel more in control.

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

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

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Speaker 1: Your Life. This book teaches how to use design principles

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Speaker 1: to improve your time at the office. We've probably all

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

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Speaker 1: Evans right, people find themselves in jobs that they generally like.

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Speaker 1: It's just that circumstances are stressful. These stressful circumstances come

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

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Speaker 1: the happy overwhelmed, and the hyper overwhelm. They required 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 running too many projects simultaneously.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you're having to pull information from too many sources,

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Speaker 1: or you have to use legacy systems that are cumbersome

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Speaker 1: and badly designed. The happy overwhelm is when you just

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Speaker 1: have too much of a good thing going on. You've

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: no organization chart. Anyway, when you find yourself overwhelmed, ask

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

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Speaker 1: and then you can figure out what to do. If

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

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

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Speaker 1: permission conversations be specific. Burnett and Evans right say, that

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

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Speaker 1: version of your software versus the version that you're stuck with,

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Speaker 1: or if you can write a monthly report instead of

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Speaker 1: a weekly one, or if you can split your clients

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Speaker 1: into a's and bees, with the a's getting responses in

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours and the bees getting responses in ninety

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Speaker 1: six hours. Most managers are happy to have people propose

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Speaker 1: solutions to their problems, so you don't need to fear

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Speaker 1: this converse station As for happy overwhelmed, well, the problem

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Speaker 1: here is that you may have a tougher boss yourself.

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Speaker 1: You've chosen to do all these amazing things, and you

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Speaker 1: are now paying the price. The solution here is often

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Speaker 1: to start delegating. Figure out which of these tasks you

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Speaker 1: are uniquely qualified to do and which can be given

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Speaker 1: to someone else. Maybe with you editing or approving at work,

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Speaker 1: you can ask for more resources, people, budgets, and so forth.

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Speaker 1: At home, maybe you can hire a cleaning service, send

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Speaker 1: out the laundry, or hire a personal assistant. The point

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Speaker 1: is to multiply your existing hours, because you are not

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Speaker 1: going to magically get more. Finally, for the hyper overwhelmed,

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Speaker 1: Burnett and Evans recommend thinking of the situation as a

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Speaker 1: marathon rather than a sprint. Run the mile you're in,

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Speaker 1: take care of yourself, making sure that your non negotiables

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Speaker 1: like sleep and exercise happen, and finally, change your story

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Speaker 1: rather than I'm frantic because I have no idea what

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Speaker 1: I'm doing. You could repeat it's so exciting to be

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Speaker 1: figuring this all out. Positive thoughts go a long way

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Speaker 1: in all of these situations. Check in a few weeks

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Speaker 1: later to see if the situation seems more under control.

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Speaker 1: Are the steps you're taking working. If so, great, If not,

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Speaker 1: figure out what else you need to change. Things can

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Speaker 1: be overwhelming for a while, but you don't want them

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Speaker 1: to be overwhelming permanently. In the meantime, this is Laura.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of

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Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.

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Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.

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Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

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Speaker 1: Before Breakfast Pod that's B the number four then breakfast po.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: Podcast at i heeart media dot com. That Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters thanks so much.

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Speaker 1: Should I look forward to staying in touch? Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts

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