Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #69| These 4 Habits are Keeping You STUCK in Overwhelm and Killing Your Productivity
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: If you're wondering why you keep feeling overwhelmed day after day, week after week, even maybe year over year, today I'm going to give you the inside scoop on *why*.
- 0:09Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:22Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: Hey, thank you so much for joining today, friend.
- 0:43Michelle Gauthier: It's good to have you here.
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: Today
- 0:45Michelle Gauthier: we are going to look at the four habits that will keep you stuck in overwhelm.
- 0:50Michelle Gauthier: We are going to look at multitasking, overcommitting, perfectionism, and negative self-talk.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: We're going to explore why these habits can become such a problem and contribute to overwhelm, and you know I'm never going to leave you hanging.
- 1:04Michelle Gauthier: I'm also going to give you the solutions for each one of these and give you actionable steps to stop doing these things that are keeping you stuck in stress and overwhelm.
- 1:14Michelle Gauthier: Before I jump into all the details on that, though, I just want to tell you some exciting news that just recently, the podcast got moved up to the top 2% of all podcasts in the whole wide world.
- 1:26Michelle Gauthier: How crazy is that?
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: There are 3.5 million probably more by now podcasts and Overwhelmed Working Woman is in the top 2%.
- 1:35Michelle Gauthier: That is due to all of you listening and sharing this podcast with your friends and taking the time to write reviews.
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: That means it gets shown to more people and when it gets shown to more people, we get more listeners and we help more people.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: So maybe I could say people one more time.
- 1:54Michelle Gauthier: So I just wanted to say thank you to anyone who has taken the time to write a review and if you have not and you love the podcast, I would be so grateful if you would do that.
- 2:06Michelle Gauthier: I'm just going to read one of my most recent favorite ones.
- 2:09Michelle Gauthier: It says, "I love listening to this podcast during my daily commute.
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: Michelle has a way of making everything seem so simple.
- 2:17Michelle Gauthier: She also hosts the most interesting guests.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: I've made lifestyle improvements based on the podcast alone and the best part of it is that it's felt fairly effortless.
- 2:27Michelle Gauthier: Yes, that makes me so happy, because my whole goal is to start off your week on Monday morning with talking about a problem that you may have and then giving you some very simple, actionable solutions that you can do so that you feel empowered to change your life in a way that's better for you.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: So if you would leave a review, that would be amazing.
- 2:49Michelle Gauthier: Thank you to everyone who's already done so.
- 2:51Michelle Gauthier: Let's get into it, okay.
- 2:54Michelle Gauthier: So, like I said, we are going to look at four habits that are keeping you stuck in overwhelm, and the very first one is multitasking.
- 3:03Michelle Gauthier: Multitasking is one of those things that seems like it would be a good idea.
- 3:07Michelle Gauthier: It feels like, oh, I'm going to be oh, so efficient and do two or three things at one time.
- 3:12Michelle Gauthier: I'm going to not just be on a call, but I'm also going to answer a couple emails while I'm on that call.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: And what happens when you do that, studies actually show this, is that multitasking forces your brain to rapidly switch tasks, because we can't actually do two things at once.
- 3:30Michelle Gauthier: So in that example that I gave, you're maybe listening on the conference call for 10 seconds, then you switch to the email and you're focusing on that for 10 seconds, but tuned out from the conference call.
- 3:41Michelle Gauthier: Then you go back to that.
- 3:42Michelle Gauthier: So when you're forced to rapidly switch tasks between things, it leads to decreased efficiency and increased distractibility, and it's proven that you make more errors, which completely makes sense to me.
- 3:55Michelle Gauthier: I absolutely make errors when I'm trying to multitask.
- 3:58Michelle Gauthier: It's also not great for your body.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: It temporarily raises your stress levels and your blood pressure and your heart rate.
- 4:05Michelle Gauthier: So I don't even have to explain why that's not good.
- 4:08Michelle Gauthier: It's just putting additional unnecessary stress on your body.
- 4:12Michelle Gauthier: Also, as a funny side note, as I was writing this part of the podcast, my son came in while I was trying to concentrate and write and asked me to Google a car that he really needed to show me that he wants.
- 4:23Michelle Gauthier: Keep in mind, it's like a $200,000 car, not a car that he's actually going to be getting anytime soon in life.
- 4:29Michelle Gauthier: So such is life.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: We get interrupted and we have to either multitask or switch tasks back and forth sometimes.
- 4:36Michelle Gauthier: But the good news is and this is the solution is that we can solve the additional stress that's caused by multitasking simply by not multitasking.
- 4:47Michelle Gauthier: A term that I love is single tasking, so that is just where you focus on one task at a time.
- 4:53Michelle Gauthier: I'm going to give you a couple ideas for when and how to do that.
- 4:59Michelle Gauthier: I know it obviously sounds easy.
- 5:00Michelle Gauthier: Hey, here's an idea: work on one task at a time.
- 5:02Michelle Gauthier: But what I mean by that is scheduling a specific time for your emails so you can check your emails, maybe at nine and noon and four, and if you immediately want to push back on that and think like I can't do that, maybe you check yours on the hour if you have that kind of job.
- 5:21Michelle Gauthier: Another thing you can do is just limit your distractions.
- 5:24Michelle Gauthier: I always keep my phone notifications off, but when I'm working, obviously if I'm seeing a client, or really trying to focus on something, I will turn my phone upside down or set it in a different part of the room.
- 5:36Michelle Gauthier: So it's just one less thing that I have to worry about.
- 5:39Michelle Gauthier: I don't need to get a notification or hear a sound that my phone potentially could make, or even just see something on the screen.
- 5:46Michelle Gauthier: Another quick way to improve your ability to single task is to declutter the space where you're working.
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if your desk has a bunch of stuff on it, I often have my notebook and maybe some post-it notes or things that I'm writing on, and every time they catch my eye they kind of distract me.
- 6:04Michelle Gauthier: So if I really need to concentrate on something, it's very helpful to me to close my notebook, set it at the edge of my desk, clear off the 15 cups that I usually have on my desk by the afternoon, and then I can really focus and get to work.
- 6:18Michelle Gauthier: The last suggestion that I have for single tasking is a little bit different, and that is to start practicing meditation.
- 6:26Michelle Gauthier: Or, if you are already a meditator, to try to kick up your habit a little bit.
- 6:30Michelle Gauthier: Do it once a day instead of once a week.
- 6:32Michelle Gauthier: Practicing meditation is a great way to train your brain to focus on one thing at a time.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: That's exactly what meditation is, so give that a try
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: if you are a big multitasker or in the habit of being a multitasker.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: The second habit that's keeping you stuck and overwhelmed is overcommitting.
- 6:52Michelle Gauthier: So we've got multitasking first, overcommitting second.
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: The definition of overcommitting is to obligate yourself beyond what you have the ability to fulfill.
- 7:01Michelle Gauthier: So think of it like this as an analogy If you have $10,000 a month and you buy a house with a mortgage payment of $11,000 a month, you literally have obligated yourself to an amount that you cannot fulfill, you cannot pay.
- 7:17Michelle Gauthier: Now think about your time, like that money.
- 7:20Michelle Gauthier: Think about how many hours there are in a week 24 hours in a day, so 168 hours in a week.
- 7:26Michelle Gauthier: How many of those are you already committed to working or sleeping?
- 7:30Michelle Gauthier: And of those hours that are left over, you don't want to fill every single one of them up.
- 7:37Michelle Gauthier: You want to have some that are free and white space.
- 7:39Michelle Gauthier: The solution for this and I think, much like multitasking, this can just become a habit where you say yes to everything, you try to fit in everything.
- 7:48Michelle Gauthier: Even though you're jam-packed, you'll try to fit one more thing in there.
- 7:52Michelle Gauthier: So the solution to this is to evaluate each commitment's importance.
- 8:01Michelle Gauthier: So do I really want to do this?
- 8:02Michelle Gauthier: Don't commit to what you don't have to give, so don't overspend your budget, so to speak.
- 8:05Michelle Gauthier: Be super selective about what you commit to and don't forget to leave yourself some white space.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: There is a great episode, episode number 51, where I talk about the calendar cleanout method that I use to manage my calendar.
- 8:20Michelle Gauthier: I put things on the calendar based on how long they will take, and that helps me know realistically what I can get done in a week.
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: It even has a free worksheet for you to get it all figured out, so check that out if this is an area where you know that you struggle.
- 8:35Michelle Gauthier: The third thing that can keep you stuck and overwhelmed is perfectionism.
- 8:40Michelle Gauthier: Perfectionism is a tough one because if you're a person who has high standards, pays attention to detail, has a strong work ethic and continuously tries to improve themselves, those are all great qualities, but those also, if taken too far, turn into perfectionism.
- 9:01Michelle Gauthier: And when it turns to perfectionism, that can cause a lot of overwhelm.
- 9:06Michelle Gauthier: And I'll tell you exactly why.
- 9:08Michelle Gauthier: Because when you are a perfectionist, or use perfectionistic thinking, as you're working on something, you set high standards that are basically unattainable.
- 9:17Michelle Gauthier: Perfection is unattainable.
- 9:19Michelle Gauthier: Nobody is perfect, leading to dissatisfaction and a sense of failure with anything that you do.
- 9:26Michelle Gauthier: So let's say you work on a project and you get it to 99%, complete and perfect, and there's one outstanding issue If you're a perfectionist, you may focus on that 1% and that constant dissatisfaction or sense of failure will be there with you because of that 1%.
- 9:46Michelle Gauthier: That keeps you in overwhelm because you can never actually fully complete a task.
- 9:53Michelle Gauthier: Then, just like we were talking about above when we were talking about multitasking, perfectionism is associated with increased levels of stress, anxiety, and even depression, and it can have a pretty significant impact on well-being and just mental health overall.
- 10:09Michelle Gauthier: When you obsess over details, it can be very hard to be super productive, it makes you more inefficient, and it often can result in missed deadlines.
- 10:19Michelle Gauthier: So the biggest problems that I see with my clients who struggle with perfectionism which is a lot of them, because I work with lots of women, probably, much like you, are overachievers who have always been very successful in life.
- 10:31Michelle Gauthier: But the problem that I see is that it creates a little bit of a cycle where you want to do something really well, you work really hard, then it's not enough, so you spend more time working hard and then you have to check again and then it's not enough or you'll turn it in and you feel like it wasn't good enough.
- 10:50Michelle Gauthier: So it just gets you stuck in your head where there's no true stop to anything and that just leads to you carrying around so many details and thoughts in your head about the perfectionism.
- 11:02Michelle Gauthier: So here are some quick things that you can do to combat against perfectionism if this is an area where you suffer.
- 11:09Michelle Gauthier: Number one is limit the time that you spend on tasks.
- 11:13Michelle Gauthier: So if you have a pitch that you have to create for work and you know that you could easily spend 10 hours working on it, try to figure out how many hours you actually need and then set time limits and work on it, maybe in spurts.
- 11:26Michelle Gauthier: So let's say, you work one hour today and one hour tomorrow and you consider that to be your, as Brene Brown says, crappy first draft.
- 11:34Michelle Gauthier: So you put it together, it's not perfect yet, but at least you can get it on a piece of paper and then you assign yourself a third hour where you can make it - make the edits, make it look as good as it can be, and then call it done because you've hit the time limit that you allotted to yourself to work on this project.
- 11:53Michelle Gauthier: Another great thing - I think this is a huge tip for people who are perfectionists - is to seek feedback from others, and what I mean by that is if you've worked on that pitch for three hours and it feels like, oh my gosh, there's still so far to go, and you run it by a trusted colleague who says, yeah, it looks great.
- 12:09Michelle Gauthier: Or you take it to your boss and she says, yeah, this looks awesome, perfect, maybe add one more sentence here and you're good to go.
- 12:15Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes, when you get stuck in perfectionistic thinking, it's helpful to get an outside opinion.
- 12:21Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so that is perfectionism.
- 12:28Michelle Gauthier: The last and final one that will keep you stuck in overwhelm is negative self-talk.
- 12:30Michelle Gauthier: I want to talk to you a little bit about what negative self-talk actually is, because sometimes I see people who have negative self-talk - we all do - some people have a lot of negative self-talk, and they kind of beat themselves up for having it.
- 12:44Michelle Gauthier: So I just want you to remember a couple things about the thoughts in your head.
- 12:47Michelle Gauthier: One is the thoughts that come into your head are not optional.
- 12:53Michelle Gauthier: They're not in your control.
- 12:54Michelle Gauthier: They're just popping into your head.
- 12:57Michelle Gauthier: So if you have a thought that comes in, let's just say I'm working on this podcast and I have a thought that comes into my head that says this is a dumb episode and nobody's going to like it, I didn't create that thought.
- 13:07Michelle Gauthier: I don't really believe that thought.
- 13:10Michelle Gauthier: It just popped into my head.
- 13:13Michelle Gauthier: So it's helpful to think about that, that your brain just sometimes offers negative thoughts and when it does, what you do have an option to do is to evaluate that thought, decide if you want to believe it, and believe if it's true or not.
- 13:26Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, let's just go with this podcast example that I was talking about.
- 13:31Michelle Gauthier: When it comes into my head, I can just observe, oh interesting, I just noticed that that negative thought dropped into my head and I'm just going to go ahead and let it drop out.
- 13:41Michelle Gauthier: The other side, it can just pass on through my brain.
- 13:44Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes I think about them like a teleprompter that has words, so I can see the words going across the page and then they're just gone.
- 13:51Michelle Gauthier: So you can notice that your thoughts are not in your control as far as what comes into your head.
- 13:58Michelle Gauthier: You can also observe your thoughts without being attached to or involved in them, and you can also notice when thoughts are not true.
- 14:07Michelle Gauthier: The reason why negative self-talk really keeps us in overwhelm is because, once again, it increases stress and anxiety, because it creates this sense of inadequacy and a fear of failure.
- 14:19Michelle Gauthier: So if I'm really thinking this podcast is terrible and nobody's going to listen to this episode, I'm thinking, okay, well then, why am I doing this?
- 14:27Michelle Gauthier: I'm afraid it's going to fail.
- 14:28Michelle Gauthier: I don't even want to put it out there.
- 14:30Michelle Gauthier: So it really makes us hesitant to do things and that, in turn, over time, decreases your self-esteem.
- 14:37Michelle Gauthier: And when you decrease your self-esteem, you start losing belief in your abilities, and then it's just another vicious cycle where negative thoughts can create fear.
- 14:48Michelle Gauthier: Fear creates avoiding tasks, resulting in unfinished tasks, which leads to more negative self-talk, which then leads to more overwhelm.
- 14:57Michelle Gauthier: So, again, just like the one I gave you the example of before, this is just a thought loop.
- 15:02Michelle Gauthier: That can happen.
- 15:04Michelle Gauthier: I did a whole episode on turning around your negative self-talk in episode 29.
- 15:10Michelle Gauthier: So if this is an area where you really struggle, please go back and listen to that full podcast.
- 15:15Michelle Gauthier: But right now I want to just give you a couple solutions that you can do right away.
- 15:20Michelle Gauthier: First is recognizing and challenging your negative thoughts, like I just explained to you.
- 15:25Michelle Gauthier: Noticing that those thoughts are coming into your head, but also remembering that you don't have to attach to them, you don't have to engage with them, and that you can challenge them or come up with new, more positive thoughts.
- 15:38Michelle Gauthier: The positive thought has to be true too.
- 15:41Michelle Gauthier: It has to feel true to you.
- 15:43Michelle Gauthier: So if I'm thinking this podcast episode is the worst one ever, I'm gonna let that thought go and I can replace it with I don't know how this one's going to do, but I feel really passionate about the topic.
- 15:55Michelle Gauthier: As an example, the second thing you can do is practice gain thinking.
- 15:59Michelle Gauthier: So there's a whole other episode I keep referring back to episodes because this one's covering so much ground.
- 16:05Michelle Gauthier: But episode 63 talks about this concept of gap versus gain thinking.
- 16:09Michelle Gauthier: What gain thinking means is that you look backwards at what you have already done and you focus on your past successes and learn to focus on what you're doing well.
- 16:20Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if I'm thinking to myself, this podcast isn't going to be good, this episode is going to be terrible.
- 16:27Michelle Gauthier: I can look back.
- 16:29Michelle Gauthier: I can easily measure my past successes.
- 16:31Michelle Gauthier: I can just log into my podcast and see how many people have listened to each one of the episodes.
- 16:36Michelle Gauthier: I can see the reviews that I get.
- 16:38Michelle Gauthier: I can see that I've consistently done it over time and by focusing on what has gone right, it helps me come up with true, positive thoughts that I can use to combat that.
- 16:50Michelle Gauthier: So, in summary, we've looked at the four habits that contribute to feeling overwhelmed and to keep you stuck in that overwhelm, including multitasking, overcommitting, perfectionism, and negative self-talk.
- 17:03Michelle Gauthier: What I want you to take away from this episode today is, without judgment, just noticing which one of those areas is your biggest struggle, if you had to choose from one of the four.
- 17:13Michelle Gauthier: And then when you choose which one it is, like let's just say you choose overcommitting, then go back to one of those solutions that I suggested, and I don't want you to feel like you have to solve this problem today, right, just go to one of those solutions that I suggested.
- 17:29Michelle Gauthier: So maybe what you do is you go look at the tool for how to manage your calendar better and next week you work on removing a couple meetings or commitments that you've made to yourself.
- 17:40Michelle Gauthier: So just take one tiny step towards solving this overwhelmed problem that you're feeling.
- 17:45Michelle Gauthier: The goal of this particular episode is not to make you feel more overwhelmed because you need to fix a bunch of things.
- 17:51Michelle Gauthier: Just choose one.
- 17:52Michelle Gauthier: Choose one solution and try to implement that one.
- 17:56Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's move on to Michelle's Do Less for More Success tip.
- 18:00Michelle Gauthier: My recommendation this week for doing less for more success is to schedule your appointments either in batch or as soon as you're leaving the place.
- 18:20Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if you're leaving the dentist's office, schedule your next six-month checkup right then, that way it's on your calendar and you'll have to schedule other things around it instead of trying to find time for that appointment and forgetting to call, etc.
- 18:36Michelle Gauthier: I do this with my hair appointments.
- 18:39Michelle Gauthier: Ideally, I can schedule them all for the entire year so that they're just on my calendar and I work everything else around those.
- 18:48Michelle Gauthier: So think about any places that you could do that for yourself or your kids.
- 18:52Michelle Gauthier: Batch your appointments so you just don't have to think about them again.
- 18:57Michelle Gauthier: All right, that's it for today.
- 18:58Michelle Gauthier: Hopefully you are ready to take your one small step to move into feeling less overwhelmed! As I said at the beginning of the episode, if you would write a review if you haven't done so already I would absolutely appreciate it, and yours may be the next one I read on the podcast.
- 19:15Michelle Gauthier: Have a great week and see you on Monday.
- 19:17Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 19:25Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.
- 19:28Michelle Gauthier: com.
- 19:30Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.