So I’ve been helping Ivan streamline his business for a few months now.
He was founding a motion design startup, whilst also freelancing as a motion designer, but he’d been struggling with overwhelm,
working 10hr shifts, hadn’t been on a holiday in years, until I helped him implement one simple change his life, which helped him earn more, whilst working less.
In his 3rd session this question came up:
“What do you do if your todo list is overwhelming?”
Having a good second brain to organize your business is a must.
But even with this mental aid, overwhelm is still something that I struggle with regularly.
I’ve learned the hard way; you’ll never reach a point where you’ve cleared your plate.
I’ve been through that rite of passage that every freelancer does when they start a freelancing career…
Holding down a full time job, plus working a sidehustle in the evenings and weekends.
My route out of that trap was clawing out just a little foothold of leverage, by turning skills into money.
Once I had enough money, then I worked on freeing up my time.
Once I had more time, I feel my quality of life improved massively. This space allowed me to start thinking and planning at a higher level than before.
But even with more time on my hands I still had to accept one simple fact:
I will never have time to do everything I’d like to do. 😢
The Productivity Paradox
Most people think the cure for being too busy is to get better and faster at their tasks.
A lot of stress comes from the idea that you can somehow “get it all done” if you just work a little bit harder, or a little bit smarter, or install that new productivity tool.
But completing one task, usually leads to several followup tasks, which means the more productive you are, the more work you create for yourself.
This is why most productivity tips are lies. We are all trying to solve the wrong problem:
We’re trying to figure out how to do more work, when we need a way to have less work to do.
You see, there’s a difference between activity, and productivity.
Fresh ideas will come up all the time.
At the time they will feel very important.
This leads to people jumping onto unimportant tasks and getting distracted.
The secret isn’t finding ways to do more tasks – it’s accepting that you’ll ALWAYS have more tasks than you have time to complete.
There are only x3 ways to make more money as a freelancer but “doing Less” is the easiest by far.
Busyness vs Business
There’s a lot of different ways to organise a todo list, but I think most people overcomplicated it.
I find just having a Dumping Ground I just dump them all in and I shift stuff about as needed.
This is where productivity tools such as the Eisenhower matrix and other productivity tools fall short:
They don’t account for the fact that the only true productivity tool is focus.
How can you decide what to do if you don’t know what you’re working towards?
This is why it’s so important to design your life first and then organize your tasks around those goals.
You don’t need a way to do more tasks.
You just need a way to decide which tasks to focus on first.
My Overwhelm Management System
I use a variety of systems to reduce business and avoid getting overwhelmed.
There’s no one secret – rather, it’s a collection of tools, strategies, and tactics that I use to stay on top of overwhelm and balance on a regular basis.
Here’s what works for me:
1 Keep a Mental Braindump
There’s a lot of different ways to organise a todo list, but I think most people overcomplicated it.
Do whatever works for you; but get it out of your head to free up mental energy for the tasks at hand.
Personally I find it best just having that I call my Lineup.
I keep a running list of everything I have to do. It’s a mental dumping ground I call my “lineup.”
I shift about stuff about constantly as my priorities change.
As I work on one task, I find my brain racing ahead to other related tasks that come up.
So I dump them all into my list to get them out of my head.
I generally split it into x3 lists:
- Most Important Tasks – non-urgent things that actively grow the business, or make life easier.
- Life Admin – stuff that I do day to day to keep my life and health in working order.
- Tasks – more urgent but less important, day to day stuff that maintains business or keeps clients happy.
I will write down x1 item from each list every day, on my daily schedule.
2 Triage your todo list regularly
If I tried to get through all the stuff on my list, I’d just burn out and get stressed because I don’t have enough time to do it all.
So every day and every week, I triage my list.
Draw a Line under your todos
I actually have a line drawn on my todo list. Anything below that line, I accept I’m not getting done right now.
Every month I delete everything underneath that line.
This is your chance to vet your todos instead of just doing admin and firefighting.
- I delete stuff that’s been there so long I’m clearly not going to do it
- I move important tasks above the line when I’m ready to tackle them
- I ask myself: “What in this list can I realistically do today?”
3 Tactical procrastination
So you’ve mastered client boundaries and saying no to your clients.
But how are you at saying no to yourself?
Instead of acting on tasks straight away, I leave them on the list to see if they’re genuinely important.
You realize it wasn’t so important after all, and you just delete it.
Over time, you save so much time by not doing tasks that weren’t actually important.
You’ll be AMAZED at how much stuff you think you have to do right now that, when you come back four weeks later and it’s still not done, nothing bad has happened, or it’s magically resolved itself 🪄
4 “Just-In-Time” Task Management
Another kind of tactical laziness to nurture:
Stop doing stuff until you HAVE to do it.
This sounds counterintuitive.
Some things should of course not be left to the last minute.
But so many solopreneurs are working on the right thing at the wrong time.
They go down productivity rabbitholes, jumping ahead and doing the right tasks at the wrong time.
An example?
I once wasted days creating case studies for every project I’d ever done.
Now I only make a case study when I need to pitch a new niche, and just x1 good case study is often enough.
5 Task Chunking
Big tasks encourage procrastination
When you do have to tackle something big, break it down into smaller tasks.
This gets it out of your head so you’re not stressed about it. It also makes the work feel more manageable and gives you small wins along the way.
Slow down, to go fast
Doing less leaves more time for doing the RIGHT things.
The most important mental shift is letting myself off the hook for doing everything.
No, I’m not going to have time to do everything I’d like today.
So I’m going to do what I can do in my four hours, then I’ll stop, and triage my todo list again tomorrow.
Let’s go back to Ivan; That one simple change I helped him implement? He started doing less.
Here’s what he said after implementing these strategies:
I’ve actually been pretty quiet over here…
Since I stopped trying to do everything…
It’s actually been better, I don’t stress!What I realised:
When I don’t focus on too many things I actually earn more money AND have more time. I’m not putting any pressure on myself. Just narrow down and go slowly.
– Ivan, Motion by Staki
We’re all suffering from chronic busyness.
But when you slow down, and start doing less the quality of your thinking improves dramatically. It becomes easier to identify what tasks are actually important, and easier to say no to yourself to.
And the more you say no to yourself, the less tasks you have on your plate, and the more “slow time” you get back.
It’s a satisfying flywheel which improves your work and your life.
If you want to dive deeper into these techniques, with examples and walkthroughs, here’s my system for braindumping to …
- avoid overwhelm
- organise thoughts across hundreds of different projects
- filter out the unimportant
- identify the right things to do on a daily basis.
Want to avoid overwhelm as a solopreneur?
Subscribe for instant access to Steal my system to build an organised dumping ground for all your overwhelming thoughts.
