To feel overwhelmed with these things

[Srx1]

Hello. Please be kind.

I know this is a first world problem bit I would like other people’s thoughts or maybe advice.

I am often overwhelmed.With this fast world we live in now. With the amount of information and things available constantly. I keep adding to my list of things i want to read/watch/research/do/etc. And the list keeps growing, links are being saved, tabs are kept open but I have no time. I have a baby under one year and dogs and no family nearby apart from my husband. I have very little time for myself and when I do, I get decision paralysis because there is so much to choose from. And end up wasting my time. And I have sooo much to do. The ever growing to do list in my mind makes me so anxious. I have a problem with organising my time and setting priorities and just saying bye to everything else, it’s like i have FOMO.
I go on social media more than i would like to and i hate it for that and how it makes me feel but a lot of the times i do it because it is my way to connect with people, seeing snippets of people’s daily lives..makes me feel like I’m there. my friends live far away and I am so lonely.

Am I making sense? How do I stop wasting time and focus on what’s important? I know in theory but I struggle committing to it in real life. I’m hoping to practice mindfulness more. I want to be here, now, stop wasting time and be more efficient.

I know what you mean OP. I think probably get rid of all your lists and to-do plans. Go to the library or bookshop, or choose a specific film/series and commit to watching/reading that next time you have some down time. Try to accept that there are millions of options and you'll never get through them all so choose a specific thing to focus on. When that's done, move on to the new thing. Also try to set time for tasks such as emails etc, but delete the ones that will bring you more options that will then give your more paralysis. If it is things like appointments to things needing responses commit to either a number of them, or a time period - then step away and come back to it at a designated time the next day. I find planning my day helps. Write your lists but identify the must do's, and want to do's (but only one or two - perhaps nice vs rainy day options or something like that). If you do have a huge long list then choose five things at at time to get done and then go back to it when they are completed. Look at your day in terms of time segments and assign a task/tasks to each, including when you will have some time to yourself and what you will do with it. I was going to say that I'm sure there are books about the burden of too much choice, but that would be counter-intuitive! Just accept that books have been written about the subject and so you're not alone and it is manageable but you may have to be quite disciplined. Good luck.

@Liveanlearn thank you! Those are some good tips. I admit I am not great at planning, I have kinda tried few techniques , I start ok and disciplined and then things change after a while and again I get all tangled up . It is also really hard now to plan anything with a baby. I can only plan for a couple of hours in the evening but sometimes I am so tired that I don't want to do anything that requires focus!
Or I can't because it's late for that specific thing or I can't be quiet etc. a lot of things on my lists are small things that I remember I need to do during the day but I can't do them as I'm busy and it just keeps on piling. So dozens of little things around the house or... look up activities to do with the baby orrr look up baby food recipes or.. .. having to do little bits and bobs around the house that I keep postponing.. just normal life stuff that I think of in lists! Plus other random things.Plus all that wishful reading/watching. ..I tried writing down all of these tasks that pop up in my head thinking maybe it will feel tidier in my mind.. but no..

Totally agree, everything is so fast and instant now it's so hard to cut off and relax. Technology has been amazing and has provided us with so many connections we didn't have access to before but on the other hand, yes it relentless. Xx

OP you seem similarly wired to me. I always have tonnes of tabs open, but do periodically revisit them and often am more ruthless in closing them down these days.

The revelation for me since smartphones has been Pinterest. I have sooo many boards and find it is the perfect repository to curate all the cool links, intellectual shrapnel, digital shiny things and general stuff of interest.

if I like something now, be it an image, blog, product, song, diagram, article, website… I pin it. Try it!

@Jeannie88 Exactly, it has enabled some amazing things but on the other hand.. it can be a very negative thing. I just wish I can be more selective when it comes to all the content and info. I don't need to read/watch/listen everything, why do I feel like I am constantly missing out on something important! I forgot to mention podcasts too, I try to listen some when I'm walking but again, so much stuff out there! I often miss more simple times.. where you didn't know what someone cooked that day, what their house looked like etc unless you went to visit them. I know some people can switch all that off and I'd love to know how ?! I want to be present in this moment and exist now, not constantly feel anxious about what I could/should be doing instead.. I don't do half of those things anyway! 😅

@ChocAuVin Yes tabs open and then I revisit them! For example those are things I wanna look into more but don't have time so i try to do but by bit. It's exhausting.. I have pinterest and use it sometime for some things but I do worry it will become just another thing to do. I have lots of links saved in both instagram and fb but i rarely go back to them. Just keep on saving new ones 🤦🏻‍♀️😂 it is all ridiculous when I think about it..

Maybe mindfulness is the answer. And just doing this then and there and scrap everything else!

OP in my case mindfulness is the answer. Remembering during overwhelm that all I really have is now. Coming back into my body, bringing my attention ‘home’ to me when my mind is spinning out, out, out with possibilities and information….

Sounds so wanky but it works. And like you, I rarely revisit the things I pin. I use the act of pinning them as a way to know they’re there if I wanted.

With podcasts, I’ve simply committed to ‘go steady’ with a few. There are too many recorded hours of podcasts to ever listen to them all over a human lifetime so I’ll just enjoy and truly absorb those I actively consciously choose 💙

@ChocAuVin Yes that is a good practice, I will continue trying to work on mindfulness.. I guess it is good to just save/pin stuff and know it's there if needed instead of focusing on having to go through them sometime. There is also this issue of thinking of every small task in offline life as something that needs to be done and ticked off the list. Not sure how to approach that.. how to just accept that as part of life and not stress so much about that too.