Let’s say you meet a friend you haven’t seen in a while. If you ask, “What have you been up to lately?” you will almost certainly get the response, “I’ve been so busy!” Most people seem to boast about their busy-ness and how they don’t get enough sleep. This is a recipe for health problems and poor mental clarity.
We discussed earlier how sleep is important for improving your brain’s ability to learn. A lot of people will give up rest to get done all of the things on their to-do list. But if you think about it, we will die with things on our to-do list! It’s not necessarily a great virtue to try to clear everything off our list every day. We will be tempted to cut corners and compromise quality to get the “done” checkmark. That’s so counterproductive! And it’s not fair to those we have made commitments to. If I can’t give someone my best work, I shouldn’t take on the job.
And if we’re trying to learn a new skill, trying to power through exhaustion to get it done will undermine any learning we may pick up. If we’re so busy that we find ourselves missing sleep or trying to do our personal development exercises when we’re really tired, we need to change something. Either start saying “no” to new opportunities until the current ones are under control, or start delegating.
Notice I’m including myself in this little sermon. I’m just as susceptible as anyone to take on too much and to try and do it all myself. When I feel overwhelmed with things to do, I take a step back, make a list of everything I need to do, prioritize it, and focus on doing one thing at a time.
But trying to learn something when we’re tired, or trying to power through an exercise to make sure we don’t miss a day is an indicator that something is out of balance. It’s time to take a step back, take stock of our commitments, and start focusing on clearing some space for creativity and learning to grow.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? How do you keep it from happening?