Maximize the Minutes: How to Overcome Overwhelm and Get More Done in Less Time

Remember the TV show Lamb Chops Play Along? Remember the song?

This is the song that doesn't end
Yes, it goes on and on my friend
Some people started singing it
Not knowing what it was.
And they'll continue singing it forever just because…

Never caught it as a kid, but as an adult, I’m 99% sure that song was written about laundry. Wasn’t Lamp Chop a sock puppet, anyway? Yeah, for sure it was about laundry. 

Jokes, jokes, I got jokes, but what I used to have was OVER-freakin-WHELM. I used to spin out on the regular about my volume of to-do’s that needed to be done at any given minute. It felts like a tsunami. You’d see it rolling in, getting bigger and bigger and bigger, knowing when it hits the shore it’s going to…

That’s what thinking about laundry, chores, and to-do’s feels like. But actually doing them? That’s actually not that difficult. Right? Starting one load of laundry takes…3 minutes? If you’re including fabric softener? Putting one load away takes…10 minutes?

But thinking about doing laundry, thinking about putting laundry away (and it’s never just one load we think about, is it? We think about doing alllllll the laundry) can take all day. I’m using laundry as an example, but your thing may grocery shopping, meal planning or cooking dinner, cleaning your house, answering those emails, working out, whatever it is.

The first big adjustment is to notice that the tasks themselves are entirely neutral, the overwhelming part is thinking about the tasks. Ever notice how you’re rarely overwhelmed by a task or to-do while you’re doing it, it’s usually when you’re thinking about doing it that you spin out?

To interrupt your pattern / cycle of overwhelm, you can start in the practical, if that feels most accessible. You can start by creating some kind of supporting system, that will assure you you’ll not forget about what needs done, so you can choose to stop thinking about what needs done.

What kind of supporting system? For me, a supporting system needed to include my calendar, because my calendar is a central part of my operating system. It might look different for you, you know what suits you best. A supporting system = whatever will support you in feeling assured that your to-do's have a time and place.

The next adjustment is to notice that you need far less time than it feels like you do (when you’re looping in overwhelm) to make a significant impact. No big chunks of unscheduled hours to build your supporting systems into? No extra hours in the day? Same, girl, SAME. What I could come up with was MINUTES. Embrace the minutes, when you don’t have hours.

You don’t need hours at a time to do the tasks. You think you need hours, to feel like there’s plenty of time to get it all done (so you don’t shift into overwhelm). But for the tasks themselves, hours aren’t necessary. Maximize the minutes.

Here’s how I practically did this recently. Laundry was overwhelming me. I was letting it sit until the weekend, and constantly spinning out with thoughts of how many hours I was going to have to spend washing, drying, folding, and putting away. I’d melt into overwhelm with stories about how I wouldn’t have any time to relax or play, that I’d have to be working all weekend long, and start the new week exhausted and behind. I’m honestly a little embarrassed sharing it, but the truth is, that was my pattern, on repeat.

When I decided I’d had enough of the laundry-all-weekend game, I looked for some hours in my week days to move the task. Turns out, I had none. No big pockets of unscheduled time to drop in laundry. What now? Well, if I don’t have hours, I’ll try minutes. I’ll scheduled it in the minutes I had available, and decided I'd make up what was left on the weekends. That was my plan. Guess what happened?

I scheduled in doing laundry 30 minutes/day, M-F. Turns out, that’s all I need. Actually, I need even less than that, so on the days when there isn’t a new load to put away or another full load to start, I do some other chore and knock that out. 

The key to finding that out, however, was to show up for the supporting system I created. I showed up for my 30 minutes of laundry, and when it was over, I transitioned tasks.  I certainly could have kept grinding, running over into time allocated to other things. But that wouldn’t have felt supportive anymore, it would have felt like moving an overwhelming thing from the weekend to the week day. To maximize the minutes, you’ve got to be willing to stop after the minutes are up. Move on. Pivot into your next meaningful activity. 

Where can you start maximizing the minutes in your day? Where can you block out 10, 15, or 30 minutes of time, and insert something that’s been overwhelming you? What (seemingly) never-ending task can you give a home base, a place to belong in your life, so you’re not constantly feeling behind, like your failing, or letting yourself or someone else down?  

• Emails?
• Laundry?
• Cleaning?
• Exercising?
• Prayer?
• Meditation?
• Journaling?
• Reading to your kids? (This was another area that totally surprised us. 15 minutes/day was all we needed to schedule for our kids to feel like we were really showing up for them in this way.)

The takeaways:

• The overwhelming part is thinking about chores, tasks, and to-dos, not actually doing them
• Give chores, tasks, and to-do’s (anything that’s overwhelming you) a home where they can belong in your life, by creating a supporting system for routinely executing them
• You don’t need hours for a supporting system, minutes will definitely do; You probably need less than you think you do

Important truth to understand

Overwhelm is created and solved in the mind. But sometimes supporting systems -- or physical actions -- can support us in shifting our thinking and interrupting our looping (internal) patterns. If the supporting system doesn't help, the solution for you will be internal. Internal work. But sometimes a physical shift can help create an internal one, too. Make sense? 

Where will you begin? What supporting system will you create first? Shoot me a DM - @alirspicer - and tell me about it, I’d love to hear how this looks for you!