What overwhelms you? Your to-do list? Email inbox, dirty house, or the blank page of a major undertaking you keep putting off? It seems like the bigger the thing, the more we want to put it off. It’s possible to spend more energy on worry and anxiety about doing the task than it takes to just do the task, right?
Some of the most useful advice ever given to me was from my first writing mentor Jennifer Meyers, a prolific professional writer who took me under her wings many years ago, when I had nothing more than promise and a winning smile. She taught me how to face the blank page and get thousands of pages written on deadline.
I asked her one day, in the midst of familiar anxiety about a huge project ahead of me, “How do you do it?! How do you face the blank page every day and get so much done, without panicking over the deadline?”
Her answer has guided me through countless moments of overwhelm ever since:
“It’s like gardening. Don’t look out at the whole field of work to be done. Just focus on the row in front of you. Pick one weed at a time.”
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, size up your field, then tackle it one row and one weed at a time. Make to-do lists with items that don’t take more than 10 minutes to complete—weed-sized items. When you’re done with one list, figure out the next step in the sequence—keep moving down the row.
When you look up, you’ll have it all done.
