5 Tips For Managing Overwhelm and Overload

Are you feeling a little over cooked?

There can be so many things shouting for our attention it can make your hair stand on end. Having so much STUFF coming at us all the time can make you feel really tense. It can be
a source of some of the paralysis that so many solo pros feel as well.

Install A Circuit Breaker

Just like we have power strips that absorb energy surges to protect our computers, we need to install acircuit breaker on our brains to absorb some of the overwhelming data coming in all the time. Here are 5 simple tips to help you do that:

1. Identify where it’s coming from. Not all information is valuable. Get a handle on where all of your info is coming from. It could be from your cellphone, your TV, your RSS feeds, the radio, twitter updates, gossip, and more. Make a list of all the info feeds that are pouring into your consciousness for three days and make a note of how you felt while you were listening. Review the list and edit and alter. For example, I don’t listen to the radio any more. I found that the radio announcers were really annoying me. Now if I do have background music on – which is rare – it’s streamed from Pandora where I can choose exactly the music I want to hear. Here are some other ideas to cut the static:
• Limit the time you listen or watch the news. Just the headlines once a day can be plenty.
• Schedule the times that you check the voice mail on your cell phone and turn it off the rest of the time (Imagine YOU being in charge instead of the gadget! Outrageous!)
• Routinely weed your RSS feeds – Have an objective with what you follow: Business leaders; Experts; Places to comment… If current feeds don’t fit the objective, unsubscribe.
• Scan and file. Scan the topics in your feeds. You don’t have to read every word. If thetopic looks like it could be useful at a future date, give it a tag and file it. Done. (Tip: Evernote is way cool for this!)
• Monitor your twitter stream. Is there useless fluff? Weed it out. Unfollow tweeps that arenot contributing in a meaningful way. (Same with the gossips)
2. Define your priorities. Once you’ve got your list of information sources and the notations onhow they’re making you feel. Stop and ask yourself what you want. This could be a deepquestion. It has been said that everything that enters your consciousness never leaves.
• Is there some information contaminating you?
• Where do you ultimately want to end up?
• Who do you want to be?
• Is the information flowing in alignment with that?
• Is it contributing to your business and life goals
• How are you feeling when you access the information? Uplifted? Depressed? Doomed?Unclean? Stressed? Excited?
3. Delete without mercy. This is where you can start to take control. Every morning select all ofthe newest emails and delete those that you don’t really need to see. Make a list of email newsletters that you no longer read and unsubscribe or junk them so you don’t have to keep dealing with them.
4. Eliminate the dupes. We all know that even with business tips, there are a lot of people out there saying much the same thing. That’s OK. We all resonate with different people differently.Just start to filter. If you find that you’re getting the same message and advice from several sources, determine who you’d prefer to follow and just follow them.
5. Unplug and disconnect regularly. Just like a cool glass of water is refreshing after you’ve over exerted yourself, peace and quite can refresh you when you’ve been too connected. A friend recently sent me a link to a web page that was entirely blank. The primary reason was to offer internet wanderers a place of quietness and simplicity on the overcrowded World Wide Web—“a blank page for relaxing the restless mind.” Give yourself some space to recharge and relax your mind. You’ll be surprised at the wealth of cool new ideas with come to you when

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Author Info: Barbara Saunders is a publication designer and has run a successful solo pro business for more than a decade. She is the Solo Pro Success Coach and the Director of the International Association of Self-Employed Communication Professionals and the Solo Pro Academy. She also hosts the Solo Pro Radio show everyday at 10am Pacific and 1pm Easter.n It’s our mission to build community and help creative solo pros build and run successful businesses by providing support, innovation, tools, and strategies. Our goal is to liberate our members from the feast and famine cycle.