The Key To Managing Overwhelm In Business

A numbers nerd and accountant (CPA), Clare Wood (lead image) is not your average bean counter. As a money mentor, she uses her number power to help entrepreneurs transform their money mindsets by following her proven frameworks to create big, beautiful business profits. Wood’s new book Intentional Profit is out now. Here, Wood offers proven tips for when you’re feeling overwhelmed…

As a creative business owner, there are a lot of balls to juggle – social media, clients, invoicing, tax, the overspilling inbox, marketing, paying bills, managing team members and contractors… the list goes on! At times the overwhelm can feel suffocating, but the good news is, there are some strategies you can employ to help you get the busy-ness back under control to support you to grow your most successful business!. There are two elements you need to consider to get that pesky overwhelm back under control:

The practical strategies to get the To Do list back under control
The mindset around your “overwhelm” aka how you are perceiving it

Stop, step back and plan

If you feel like you are on a one-way track to burnoutsville, it can feel like you might just need to charge full steam ahead. But in fact, stepping back and looking at everything holistically is actually a fantastic way to work out what your priorities actually are.

Before doing this exercise, you should do a meditation and some deep breathing so you approach the process with a cool and calm head. Once you are feeling focussed and collected, the next step is to list out everything that there is to do. Go through all of your emails, actions, anything in your head, get it all down. It’s actually quite cathartic, having it all in one place. Once you have the list, the next step is to go through and Eliminate, Outsource or Action each item.

Eliminate means that when you look at your action items with a critical lens, you often realise… some of these things don’t need to be done at all. Or at least, right now. This might be as simple as scratching it off the list, or you may need to communicate to another party – such as a team member, client or collaboration partner that you are not able to commit to the activity at this point in time.

Outsource is delegating tasks on your list to someone else. Again when you review your list with a set of fresh eyes, you might recognise that several of the tasks can be done by other people and in fact don’t have to be done by you. In which case, allocate the task to the responsible party, and celebrate the fact that you have cleared more space in your diary.

Action is for small tasks that you have been procrastinating on. You will undoubtedly find a few items on the list that can be knocked over straight away in less than 15 minutes. In which case, bite the bullet and get it off the list straight away. Just take a few hours and knock them over. It feels great to have a sense of accomplishment by getting those quick wins.

Flip your thinking

Mindset also forms a big part of overwhelm. You might look at the overflowing inbox, and feel a bit anxious. How can you flip your thinking about it? Having a lot on your plate is probably a sign that your business is thriving or in a growth phase. Celebrate that!

And remember to be kind to yourself. Sometimes I just shift the thinking around the tasks on my To Do list. For example, yes, I’d love to reply to every single DM on Instagram, but with my current limitation on time and team, I unfortunately can’t do that at the moment. But I give myself grace, and will continue to work towards a higher level of responses on social media.

Mindset is just a different way of perceiving things, and can really help to reduce the suffocating feeling of overwhelm. Most business owners will experience overwhelm at some stage on their business journey. But with the right strategies and mindset in place, it can be a short lived bump in the road on your path to clarity and profit.

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Clare Wood