completely overwhelmed/mental block

[boilerhouse2007]

When i was at school i had terrible organistation and planning skills and failed all my GCSE, however i repeated them all and with the help of my mum who helped me priorite tasks and break them down and she checked them i did ok in the end. I went to uni after and considering my degree was challenging i used these skills and did well. Anyway now at work and in my job I find myself completely overwhelmed this year like when I was at school. I have a huge backlog of tasks going back months and i honestly dont know where to start. It's like been back at gcse where i just give up as i wanted it all done perfectly but was too afraid to start so abandoned it. Now at work its the same, i know what has to be done but i just cannot start-its like a mental block and i seize up mentally rather than face the tasks. Its like im waiting to be rescued again, this is affecting me now all the time cos i keep worrying about the tasks but i just leave them and spend many days wasting hours at work. The longer it gets the harder it becomes.What should i do?

I really empathise with this right now! Try the 2 minute task rule - anything on your list (or broken down from something on your list) that can be done or progressed in 2 minutes - do it now. Then prioritise the rest of it. Check your list for stuff that involves a process, and start the process for some things before you'll come back to them later - i.e. get a bit of research found, or whatever, so when you come to do that you've already got an idea where you;re starting.. Get a list for today and hide the rest of it from yourself. Am talking to myself as much as you here.. Mainly, lists. I've got millions of lists. Not sure how helpful this is!! also don't panic!!!!!! (will also try to take my own advice..) good luck!

sorry ha but you completely confused me!

Oh no!! sorry! not sure whether to try again or just accept that i'm probably in as much of a spin as you are.. maybe wait for a nice calm grow-up to turn up! I also feel about 14.

it's ok and thanks, it's just your explanation of the steps lost me a bit. Sorry, i know you were being helpful.

well i was trying to be helpful! doesn't sound like i have been..

really good luck with it anyway I'll go back to my own multiple list chaos - am probably really not the best person to give advice on this at all!

Hi there, is there anyone at work that can help you to prioritise? It sounds as though you have a massive list of things to do but no idea where to start.

Things that might help - depending on where you work they may be able to help you with a time management course. If not, is there someone who appears to have it all sorted who could mentor you (they won't have it all sorted by the way, nobody does).

Failing that, try making a list and then giving them a priority number (1 for super urgent down to 3 or 5 for 'nice to do sometime').

If some of the things that you think need doing haven't been done for months, maybe they don't need to be done?

Finally, take a deep breath and don't panic. If you run around in a flap things will get worse not better.

Good luck.

no i cannot ask ppl at work as it would just flag to ppl what i have not done and everybody's very busy themselves. I just have to fix it myself as to flag it at this stage makes me look very bad.

I know EXACTLY how you feel. This is what helps me:

1. If you haven't already, write one big list of everything you need to do.
2. If there's anything on the list that takes less than 2 minutes, do it as soon as you see it then cross it off.
3. Once the quick things are done, pick a time consuming but easy thing and do that.
4. Eventually you will feel up to doing something more complicated - do that when you feel ready.

Don't worry too much about prioritising at this stage - just concentrate on getting things crossed off your list for now until it feels less overwhelming.

I don't know what the long term solution is but this is what I do when it's really starting to get on top of me and it does help.

I write a list of everything. Anything quick and easy I do it straight away, then cross it off the list. Then I prioritise the rest in terms of urgency and importance. Eg anything senior management want or on which other tasks are dependent gets done straight away.

Try visualising each individual task as an elephant. You wouldn't eat an elephant all in one go, you would have to cut it up into pieces.

So, think through how you need to tackle each individual task (mentally cut it up into logical pieces) and realistically, decide how many pieces of a task you can deal with in (say) one hour or before having a tea break. Write it down as a list and tick off the list one by one.

(Hope that make sense, it helps me. Could you have ADHD?)

i possibly have adhd, my worst thing too is that i give up,-go get lot of bad comfort food then exhaust myself after the sugar crash. It's a vicious cycle.

Two things that might help are meditation and exercise before work. The former aids concentration and the latter takes the edge off fidgeting.

i had the meds before but the docs would not agree on a diagnosis then ept asking me back for more tests and cos of work i couldn't go. I do turn to exercise but then stress overdoes me at work and the littlest thing will have me in my car buying large amounys of junk food and i go on benders. im a mess. I try to eat very healthy but then the binge urge kicks kicks in and i go days eating bad. I say tomorrow will change and then i get back to square one. ill do a few weeks of healthy eating and training and then the binge comes and i desert it. Its like i need a mum around.

Get yourself into a set routine. Each day when you go in, do one thing at a time in the same order. There must be some things that need immediate attention, so do those first for half an hour. Then have a quick look at your emails.

For instance, I do this lot in the same order every day:

No 1 Cup of coffee (!)
No 2 Reconcile the day before's banking.
No 3 Issue invoices to customers for goods sent out the day before.
No 4 Check emails - a delete spam, b forward anything that isn't for me, c check for urgent emails from customers and deal with those. Leave the rest for now.
No 5 Phone any customers with overdue invoices, highest £ first
No 6 Check emails and incoming post for suppliers invoices. Pay any that are urgent.
No 7 More coffee...

If you get any interruptions, make a note of what needs doing, but don't do it until you have finished the current task (unless the boss is hopping from foot to foot for an answer, that is...).

I carry on like that, tackling each area of what I do in the same order every day. Some days jobs 1-6 can take all morning, other days it is quieter so I then get on with any 'backlog' jobs. A week or so ago I finally managed to finish something that's been on the back burner for 6 months!

Be methodical, that's the thing. And when writing lists, prioritise.

HTH

If you feel overwhelmed by your “to do” list, and panic rather than tackle it, try my cheats’ method.
Write your list, but put a couple of things on it that you have already done! And then under those write something very easy like “make coffee” or “blow nose”.
Now cross off the things that you’ve already done. Do the one simple thing and cross that off too.
Look at your list again. Hey, you’ve made progress! There are things crossed off! And you just did another one!
Now you’re on a roll, just keep going. Don’t bother about how long the list is, just pick the next task on it and do that. This is self fulfilling, it will get easier as you reward yourself. The list will shrink. Life will seem manageable again. Go for it!

i work as a school teacher in a secondary school and i find myself just totally overwhelmed.

What might help you to prioritise is the following:

Get a piece of paper, and divide into four sections by drawing a cross through the middle (like a St George's flag). The horizontal line is the 'urgent' axis, and the vertical line is the 'important' axis.

What you then have is four sections - urgent and important, urgent but not important, important but not urgent, and neither urgent nor important. Rewrite your list into these, allocating tasks into the appropriate section.

You can then deal with the urgent and important things first, then work your way through. I used to have a grid like this for my main list, then use it to write a mini-list for each day, which would only have an achievable number of items on it - much less stressful than a Giant List of Doom.

Chin up op, you can do it!

thanks, worse is that the irony is im usually the last to leave of the staff yet still get nothing done,. its a mess.

Well, staring at a humongous to-do list, thinking 'shitshitshitshitshitshit' is very time consuming.... it certainly is for me, anyway.

You have to break it into manageable chunks and deal with it a little bit at a time. You can't tackle it all at once - that way madness (and inefficiency) lies.

The food is procrastinating.

Make yourself complete one task. Any task. Doesn't matter which.

As a previous poster tried to say, go for an easy win first.

Something that can be completed in a couple of minutes.

If you do have ADHD, you can almost certainly go into what's called hyperfocus.

An almost hypnotised state where you lose track of time and just concentrate on one thing.

Break your tasks down into the total number that need to be done.

Write the task down on the top of a sheet of paper, with the deadline.

One piece of paper per task.

Once you've sorted out the total number of tasks, concentrate on each one at one at a time.

What needs to happen before each task is started?

Do you need any equipment?

How much time do you have?

Break the task down into stages and list them in the order they need to happen to complete the task.

Do this for each task.

Work through the tasks with the most pressing deadlines first.

Try to combine tasks.

If you need to go online to find information and another task also requires you to find information, then go online to perform both tasks.

Try to go for diagnosis.

Buy a notebook and a set of four highlighter pens.

Find an hour and make a massive list of everything you know you haven't done. In any order.

Highlight any deadlines already missed that cannot be extended. Contact your line manager and tell them about these and explain you are overwhelmed. Teachers are leaving in droves. You're not the only one to feel overwhelmed at the amount of work dumped on you.

Next highlight in a different colour any that you feel deeply guilty about. The ones that wake you up in a cold sweat. What's the easiest way you could complete or resolve them? Can they be delegated? Put on hold until next year? - write a suggested action beside each one. Ideally, write a quick email to anyone involved, saying: 'I'm sorting out a backlog of work and this has come to my attention as overdue.' Then ask what they want you to do, if it's still relevant, how to tackle it if it is seriously overdue. You just need to start the communication. If anyone gets angry, mention stress and overwhelm. They'll have to be more sympathetc then.

Next, highlight those quick, small jobs that get put off. Are any so small you could ask pupils to help out (sort a cupboard. Put up/take down a display. Ask for a task force of year 10s or year 12s to help out.

You're not alone.

''The food is procrastinating.''

yep, i will do ANYTHING and i mean anything to avoid the tasks and focus on anything else-go to the other side of vthe school to give a message, chat to colleagues... it's a huge fear i have of facing the tasks. It's like a fear at this stage.

What subject(s) do you teach? (Don't say if you don't want to!)

Write a list.

i teach english with a little bit of science.