6 Tips what to do when u have too much work on your plate

🌙 Break things into smaller pieces
Having too many on your list is because you have too many big projects going on. Something like 'writing a book', 'finishing my first art book', or 'creating a full set of characters for my portfolio', is something which can be very overwhelming, and you can lose the steps in between when you don’t define them. When you don’t know what exactly you can finish over a day, then you end up working the whole time without finding some breaks and pieces. Daily goals make us feel proud of ourselves, and make us feel we did something today. If you take that away, you will never feel happy or satisfied with the things you do, which also causes laziness, procrastination, and hating your work. Try to break every big task into smaller tasks, and when you can even smaller tasks after that. Depends on what you prefer, but you can have tasks as big as 1 or 2-hour work tasks, or you can go smaller and have tasks that are only 30 20 5 minutes long.

🌙 Use the priority graph If you already broke everything into smaller tasks, but you still have a lot on your list, then try to look at your list and set the priorities in Important & not-important and Urgent & not-urgent. There is a graph that shows it pretty well. Often times we have so much on our list, and we think all of it needs to be done immediately because it’s all important. But it’s not. Take a deeper look into your tasks and decide what task comes in which box. This will help you to make smarter decisions and to move faster to the end goal.

🌙 Don’t build Rome in a day
It’s a nice quote to remember when you have too much to do all the time. We as humans want everything immediately and want to check the whole list in a day, which causes us a full plate every day. Nothing about accomplishing a lot throughout the day, but thinking, that you can check 30 to 40 things in a day without feeling exhausted is not possible. I was always a friend of smart working instead of hard-working. Don’t set your limits too high that you feel tired and exhausted every night. Make reasonable to-do lists, have a relaxing night routine, at least take breaks away from your work and screens and go with the strategy of 'step by step'. Better make it slow but good, than fast and rough.

🌙 Trick your mind
Set small deadlines with a timer and complete tasks faster with that technique. I heard that if we have just a specific amount of time for a task we mostly can finish this task in that specific time, when we put ourselves in that state. Let’s say you need to write a blog, and you set your timer for 2 hours. With that number in mind, your mind is trying to work in a way to accomplish the thing in that timeframe. Without a deadline, you would slow down and maybe end up in writing that blog post in 4 or 5 hours instead of 2. Trick your mind, that you have a strict deadline for a task. Even when you are a little over that time, finishing the last paragraph (let’s say 10 min) doesn’t matter, because then it’s still in a reasonable timeframe without procrastinating on it. Counting down is a good pressure for yourself and even better when you feel proud of finishing a task in a specific time.

🌙 Repeat specific Affirmations
Affirmations are great to bring your mind back into focus. This is especially needed when we tend to be perfectionists during work. We overwhelm ourselves because we want everything to be perfect, which often costs us a lot of time, and then we pile up task over task because they tend to take longer and in the end, we have so much on our plate because we never finish something out of perfection. (I know what this feels like…).
If I feel that way, I try to say to myself a few affirmations to bring back my current focus. For example sentences like 'Don’t make it perfect make it done', 'Failing makes perfect', 'Nothing will ever be perfect', 'Finish what you started', 'It’s about the little things which creates something big'. I try to say them out loud while I work, as much as I need them at that moment. This maybe sounds weird to you, but when people can encourage you by cheering you on or clapping for you, then you can do the same for yourself. Be your own best friend and listen to what you say to yourself.

🌙 Take a Break
This sounds a bit weird, taking a day off or setting up a little break, when you have a ton of things to do, right? But you SHOULD! I know that deadlines and crunch times are often caused by bad management, and you can’t do something about it (only when you are the boss of your own schedule). But there is always, and I repeat myself, always a bit of time at least daily, where you can or more MUST take a break.
It depends on your schedule but if you can take a full day 'consciously' ff, then you should do that. Don’t be on your computer, or screens or look at any work-related stuff on that day. Turn your head off for this area and fully enjoy your time with fun things, inspiring things, and hanging out with people. Whatever calms you down.
We feel often overwhelmed because we are physically and mentally overwhelmed and the only way of feeling better is by taking a break from everything. If you don’t have a full day, then try at least to shut down everything for 1 or 2 hours in your evening (what you should do on a regular basis anyway).