Leaders' Playground
What if work could feel like play? Join Irene Salter PhD for stories, science and strategies that help leaders thrive, not just survive.
Leaders' Playground
5: How to Cut One Million To Do Items Down to Just Three
Feeling overwhelmed by your to do list? You're not alone. In this episode, we dive into the ins and outs of overwhelm, its connection to burnout, how your brain handles the cognitive load, and what to do about is. From the demands-resource imbalance to the limitations of our working memory, this episode explores how our brains handle stress and juggle tasks.
I’ll share personal experiences, practical strategies, and insights from experts like Oliver Burkeman and Michael Bungay Stanier. We will break down overwhelming tasks into doable steps, prioritize effectively, and seek support when needed. In the end, we’ll be taking the million and one things on your to do list and turning them into three. Imagine how it would feel to have just three things on your to do list. Tune in and I’ll show you how!
Resources:
- Irene’s blog, “What’s the opposite of overwhelmed?”: https://www.irenesalter.com/post/what-s-the-opposite-of-overwhelmed
- A great article published in World Psychiatry on burnout: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/wps.20311
- Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book, Burnout: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42397849-burnout
- Allison William’s website: https://allisonkwilliams.com/
- Laura Vanderkam’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time
- Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-weeks
- George Miller’s famous 1956 article: https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_2364276_4/component/file_2364275/content
- Michael Bungay Stanier’s book, The Coaching Habit: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29342515-the-coaching-habit
For complete show notes, transcript, and free downloadable resources go to: https://www.irenesalter.com/podcast
Hi, welcome to the Leaders Playground. Today's big question what do you do when you're overwhelmed by an overflowing to-do list? I don't know about you, but last week was beyond trying to drink from a fire hose, maybe more like drinking from Niagara Falls. It was overwhelming, exhausting and on the edge of burnout. It was rough. Well, I've got three practical tips for you and a strategy that involves taking a walk and picking up rocks Curious. Well, listen to this episode for more. Hi, thank you for listening to the Leader's Playground, the podcast for leaders who wish their work could feel more like play. Leadership can be lonely, overwhelming and just plain crazy-making. We are here to rekindle your spark. I'm Irene Salter, your host and a PhD neuroscientist and science educator with a passion for helping people thrive, not just survive. Please click that follow button so you don't miss a single episode. Raise your hand if you're feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, bro, yeah me too.
Speaker 1:Overwhelm strikes when there is too much to do and just not enough time to do it. It's the first step along the path to burnout. What's the definition of burnout, you ask? Well, burnout is the result of extended, unrelenting, chronic stress. There's three different components that actually have to be present for it to count as true burnout. Who knew? The first one is overwhelming exhaustion, and that exhaustion could be physical, mental or emotional. Secondly, there's feelings of cynicism and detachment and finally, the sense of ineffectiveness, inadequacy and failure. Overwhelm covers the first one. There really is just too much and it is exhausting. The demands are too high and the overload is incredible. Burnout happens when the second and third bits set in. You withdraw, you snap at people and the workplace and the whole shitty situation. It's super hard to see the good things. You feel ineffective and inadequate to accomplish it all. Well, I was definitely overwhelmed last week Not quite to burnout, thank goodness. For instance, I'm going to read you my to-do list Launch two websites. Facilitate workshop for 36 guests. Host three guests for two nights at my house. Host my son's best friend's birthday party. Host another friend's 50th birthday party.
Speaker 1:Restructure and rewrite three scenes in my book. Rewrite chapter three from my book. Complete this week's writing lesson. Review two podcast episodes. Write and record two additional podcast episodes. Plan spring break. Plan some camping trips. Plan summer travels. Help my son apply for summer internships. Support a friend through a really tough time. And that's on top of all the regular stuff dishes, laundry, house pickup, get pet food, take care of my regular clients, grocery shopping. I felt like I was juggling a dozen balls all at once, with an audience watching me and someone on the side of the stage asking hey, are you ready for one more ball?
Speaker 1:What is going on psychologically is called demands resource imbalance. The simplified version is that there's just not enough resources to meet the demand. Sometimes those are physical resources, like there's not enough time, money, equipment or space. Perhaps it's a physically exhausting task and you're just too tired to continue. Other times it's an emotional resource, because it's really hard to be compassionate when you're angry, afraid or stressed. Sometimes it's mental resources literally how many things you can think about and remember in your brain at any one time?
Speaker 1:Naturally, as a neuroscientist, I'm especially fascinated by the mental resources part of it. A full 25% of our calories is invested in our brains and our brains are just a paltry 2.5% of our body weight. Neurons are incredibly expensive to maintain. There's a whole bunch of metabolic reasons why, like any other body part, our brains run on glucose which, through some really awesome biological feedback loops, gets directed towards brain areas that are the most active. That glucose fuels our brains.
Speaker 1:Now my innate natural tendency is to handle a demand's resource imbalance by being as productive as humanly possible. How can I possibly maximize every last minute of the day? How can I make sure that the glucose goes exactly to the right places at exactly the right times? Well, early in the week what that looked like was me tying myself into knots to try to fit absolutely everything into my schedule, every single last bit of that huge, long to-do list. I had back-to-back meetings. I was trying to use the five minutes between meetings to check one tiny little extra thing off my list. I was flying from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next and, unfortunately, all of the things which were usually my playground, the places where I enjoyed my work, things like coaching clients and writing even those things started to feel like work, and that was a sign it was very clear that this productivity was not working.
Speaker 1:Here's what Oliver Berkman says about that type of approach in his utterly brilliant book 4,000 Weeks. He says productivity is a trap. The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control, when the flood of emails has been contained, when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer, when you're meeting all of your obligations at work and in your home life, when nobody's angry at you for missing a deadline or dropping a ball, and when the fully optimized person you've become can turn at long last to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let us start by admitting defeat. None of this is ever going to happen. Ugh, fine, fine, oliver Berkman. By Wednesday morning, I had to admit it, I was overwhelmed. It was humanly impossible to get all this stuff done. Just thinking about it made me exhausted. I admit defeat. Oh my god, just saying that in my out loud voice makes me want to throw up Cough, cough, cough.
Speaker 1:If you go back to the idea of mental resources, there's two major concepts that's really important to understand regarding how our brains allocate the glucose to the right places. How is it that those mental resources are structured in a way to meet the demands? First, you need to know about working memory and second, you have to learn about cognitive load. See, working memory means all of those neural structures and networks that you need to plan and carry out your behavior. A classic example is a teacher asking you to start at 100 and subtract 7 over and over again. Okay, 100 minus 7 is 93. Subtract 7 again, that would be 85. No no 7 is 93. Subtract 7 again that would be 85. No, no, no 86. Subtract 7 again, let's see 86. Last digit is a 6. Subtract 7. The last digit would be 9. So 79. And on and on you go. That's working memory.
Speaker 1:Another example of working memory might be when you first learn to drive on the freeway. I'm watching my son do this right now. There's no easy task the first time when you have to accelerate and stay in your lane and look over your shoulder to check for oncoming traffic and flip on the turn signal and you do all of that at the same time. Working memory is what you use to keep all of those different things in mind. It accesses several different cognitive systems as it's needed, things like spatial awareness or your attentional systems or your memory systems.
Speaker 1:Cognitive load is slightly different. It's related. It's related in the way that basically says the capacity of your working memory is limited. It's a rule. You can only hold so much in your head at any one time.
Speaker 1:George Miller was the one who popularized this. He worked at Harvard University's psychology department and he famously wrote a paper in 1956 that's probably permanently stuck in pop science lore. The title of the paper the Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two. These are limits on our capacity for processing information. He was suggesting that seven plus or minus two is how many things we can hold in our brains at any given time. Now George wasn't actually suggesting that this was the firm limit, seven. No, it was more like a nice rhetorical device to pull his research together and put that with others in the field because he was giving a talk. It made a catchy title for his now famous paper.
Speaker 1:In the almost 70 years since George's time, cognitive psychologists have debated back and forth and back and forth about cognitive load. The important point here is that your working memory has limits. There's only so much you can ask it to hold at any time. That limits also diminishes over the course of the day as you get more and more exhausted. We'll talk about that more in the next episode.
Speaker 1:So altogether, when you look at working memory as being the things you can hold in mind and that cognitive load is the capacity you have in your working memory, I was looking at all of the things I was trying to juggle and when I admitted defeat, I had clearly, clearly exceeded my cognitive load. When I did that, I chose to do three things. First, I sent a message to my writing group because I don't know if you noticed, but on my to-do list there were many things related to writing in my book and the writing group that I'm. A message to my writing group because I don't know if you noticed, but on my to-do list there were many things related to writing in my book and the writing group that I'm a part of. I texted them. Help, I'm stuck.
Speaker 1:Allison, the amazing facilitator of this group, invited me to rewrite what I submitted last week by Saturday and I was behind on craft lessons and took my late pass. Plus, two assignments this week have been added too, and I haven't gotten any of these things done. I think I'm stuck because I'm trying to catch up on all these things at once. It's overwhelming amidst all the other stuff going on in my life. I'm hosting a workshop on Friday, there's guests staying with us, kids, clients, etc. I'm still feeling stuck and defeated and overwhelmed. My question how do you get unstuck when you've been in the spot in your own writing? What can I do to get my gears back in motion? That text spurred a whole bunch of wonderful, wonderful replies. I sat back and, within minutes, that brilliant writing coach Alison said what I do is step back and make a written list of the things to be done in small increments. So do not say, do craft lessons, instead watch video for 5.2 and write 5.2, et cetera. Then pick the thing from that list you care about the most, do that first, then do the thing with the worst consequences for not doing it. Isn't that brilliant? By the way, allison's link to her website is in the show notes. She's an utter master at what she does.
Speaker 1:Soon, after Allison replied, more suggestions came rolling in. There was create a very specific, bite-sized list, kind of like what Allison said, perhaps starting each item on the to-do list with an action verb. Ooh, I like that one. I also got take a walk, step back, allow for a slow seep over time. That was good. I also got slow down to speed up. Not everything is urgent. Yeah, okay, I know Hard to do when you're trying to speed up, but so true, slow down to speed up. And finally, I love this one Only do one thing at a time. One breath at a time, one step at a time, one bite at a time, one word at a time Genius.
Speaker 1:So immediately I rewrote my to-do list and I broke up all those big things that felt so overwhelming into small, little achievable steps. I turned them from big things that were vague and kind of fuzzy and it wasn't quite clear how to begin, to very clear, specific actions that I could actually complete in 30 to 60 minutes or less. For instance, one big, overwhelming thing on my list restructure and rewrite three scenes. That became eight little tiny to do items. Rewatch the video.
Speaker 1:Try writing the whole book in a certain structure. Try writing a chapter in a certain structure. Try that chapter in a different structure. Rewrite scene one. Rewrite scene two. Rewrite scene three. I took big, huge restructure and rewrite three scenes into eight little tiny, bite-sized pieces.
Speaker 1:Once I had written all of that down for all of my to-do items yes, it still felt overwhelming, there were too many of them, but at least now I knew how to begin I stopped and then I took some of that other advice. I went and I took a walk. So lesson number one when you're overwhelmed and stuck, reach out for help, break things down and then take a walk, all right. Second, while I was on my walk ruminating about all of my new micro to-do list items it was way longer than before, but it was way more practical. As I was thinking about that, I was reminded of a tool, something I developed, to manage my own resources. Why is it that I forget to use my own tools when I'm stressed and overwhelmed? Yep, you guessed it Stressed out, brains can't think clearly. Well, the walk really helped. It allowed my brain to get a little bit out of stress mode and to think more clearly, which reminded me of this tool.
Speaker 1:It's actually more of an analogy. It's an analogy that I use with a lot of this tool. It's actually more of an analogy. It's an analogy that I use with a lot of my clients. I tell them to imagine that they have a clear glass jar and that glass jar represents the time and energy that they have. Again, think back to that resource allocation model that I have, this amount of time and energy that could fit in this jar. That's what I've got.
Speaker 1:If you leave the jar open and just kind of go about your every day, what's going to happen is tiny little pebbles and rocks and pieces of sand and gravel. That's what's going to fill up your jar. A person's day in this modern world gets filled up with little things like emails and texts and messages. And hey, do you have a minute and a little kid pulling on your shoulder and asking you for things. It gets filled up with dishes and laundry and pickup and just all the little things, the little scruff, the things that might take two minutes to do. But if you fill up your entire day with two minutes, the whole day is gone. If you just leave your jar as is and just let it go, what will happen is your entire jar will fill up with these little things.
Speaker 1:Instead, what I encourage my clients to do is to pick three rocks. I was walking along my street and I saw some rocks, and that's what reminded me of this idea. So I started literally picking three rocks. What three things if I was going to do would allow me to make some progress, allow me to break the dam and get unstuck. Progress allowed me to break the dam and get unstuck. It's the idea that if I could take three things and put them into my jar intentionally, then that would claim some of the time for the things that were actually important, and all the little sand and gravel can fill in all the spaces, spaces around it. So I picked three rocks. It allowed me to choose intentionally which things were actually going to get me some progress and actually create some momentum.
Speaker 1:Allison, my writing coach. She says pick the thing you care about most and do that first, and then she says pick the thing with the worst consequences for not doing it. That's a great, great, great strategy. Another way to think about it is actually based on Laura Vanderkam. She's a time management guru and I'm gonna refer to her TED Talk in the show notes. Her clients tend to be ones that suffer from work-life imbalance, that they tend to prioritize their work over all of the things at home, and they become workaholics. I'll admit totally I have been exactly there. Well, what Laura Vanderkam suggests is you pick three things. One of them, and only one of them, can be work. The second one is for yourself and the third one is for your relationships. Hmm, that's a really great structure if you happen to be a workaholic.
Speaker 1:For me, it was really helpful just to pick three things, three simple, achievable steps that I could do in 30 to 60 minutes and actually have those be my rocks. So when I got back from my walk, I had three rocks in hand and I literally use them on my desk to indicate those three things that I found most important and to do them one by one. To indicate those three things that I found most important and to do them one by one. All of this is a way to manage your demand, resource and balance. It helps you manage your resources and your energy. It manages what you're going to be putting into your working memory and what you leave out. It's doing what Oliver Berkman is recommending. It's making the hard choices about what's actually most important and what actually matters.
Speaker 1:So, lesson number two when you're overwhelmed, go for a walk and pick three rocks. So let's take a pause. I would like for you to go and literally get out your to-do list, take a look at it and do these things that I recommended. Break up the big things into small, achievable, actionable steps, ideally ones that you can do in 30 to 60 minutes, and the reason I say 30 to 60 minutes is because there's research that suggests adult brains work a lot like kid brains. Kid brains work with 50 minutes of work and then 10 minutes of recess. Do the same thing for your brain. Find nice bite-sized chunks that you can do with a certain focus block and then you can take a break. Once you've done that go take a walk. That walk will allow you to step away, clear your head, actually activate different brain areas, and those will inspire you to respond with greater insight and more creativity when you get back.
Speaker 1:That's when you can choose your three rocks, or you can even, like on your walk, literally pick up three rocks. Those three rocks are the ones that you get to put in your jar. Before all the little crufty bits of sand and gravel, the emails, the pickup, the dishes, the laundry. Before all of those little things can claim your time and energy. You get to choose three things to really devote and be intentional about. I picked three rocks and those rocks allowed me one rock at a time, one rock a day to really get some progress made. I didn't do all eight of those things on my list because not all eight of them were important, but it allowed me to be intentional about which ones I actually chose. The ones that I chose took two and a half hours altogether, but, more importantly, it got me re-energized and unstuck. Remember how I said, my writing and my coaching started to feel like work and not play. Well, once I got unstuck, once I started breaking things down into bite-sized, actionable pieces, writing once again felt like play, not work, and that's the point of this podcast. How can you make your work feel more like play? So again, that's the strategy Break up your to-do list into bite-sized chunks. Go and take a walk, choose three rocks. All right back to the show.
Speaker 1:The third thing I did when I was feeling so overwhelmed is I had a conversation with my best friend and fellow executive coach, tootie Tagerly. She's a master at what she does and works with founders and other executives all around, especially in the design and tech industry. I was complaining to her about feeling overwhelmed but managing it, and she challenged me, like she always does, with a really amazing observation. She said it seems to me you don't really want to fix it. You're managing just fine. And I thought about that and I thought about it and I chewed on it and I realized it made me really grumpy because 2D was exactly right. I was managing the underlying issue, but I wasn't fixing the underlying problem.
Speaker 1:The underlying problem is that I said yes to too many things. I allowed too many things to get onto my to-do list in the first place. What I really should be asking is my favorite question from the author of the Coaching Habit, michael Bungay Stanier, and his question is this if I say yes to this, what am I saying no to? Wait, say that again, because it's super important. If I say yes to this, what am I saying no to? Because when you have too much to do and not enough time to do it, you have too much to do and not enough time to do it. If you want a permanent fix, what you've got to do is ditch a lot of the things on your plate and only add the things that really truly belong and feel okay about it. So, yes, by the end of the week. Tootie, I was managing just fine. I had renegotiated some of my deadlines, I'd taken care of the things that really mattered most. I let go of the tasks that didn't matter. But did I fix the underlying problem? Not quite, but I know how to do it, and so I did. It's called the five Ds, but this episode is getting a little long, so you're going to have to wait until next episode in order to get the five Ds. Trust me, it's worth the wait and you're going to love it. We'll talk about the five D's and decision fatigue and all sorts of other goodness the next time.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me at the Leaders Playground this week. I would love to thank Tyler Lockamy for the production and sound design, robin Canfield for the new podcast landing page on my website Don't you love it. Robin Canfield for the new podcast landing page on my website Don't you love it? And Tessa Burkess, my right-hand woman, who went over and above to take care of me and all my drop balls this week. In the show notes you're going to find a link to all of those three, as well as Oliver Berkman's book, alison Williams' website, laura Vanderkam and her TED Talk and several other articles that help you go deeper into working memory and cognitive load.
Speaker 1:Finally, would you please, please, pretty please do me two favors. First, please click the follow button on Spotify, google, apple or wherever you get your podcasts. That will ensure you find out when that next episode on the 5Ds is going to drop, because we don't just want to manage overwhelm, we want to manage overwhelm, we want to fix it. Secondly, do you know a leader or friend who's overwhelmed right now and feeling like work is all work and no play? If so, please share this podcast with them, because it might just offer them a way to thrive and not just survive. That's it for now, irene Salter, signing off. See you next time at the Leader's Playground.
