Overwhelmed...Who Isn't Right?

Lately many people I've been talking to have been complaining, and in most cases justly so, about being overwhelmed.  I have to admit that I've wrestled with it too.  Being overwhelmed stinks!


Complaining about being overwhelmed never seems to be the remedy.  It sucks the energy right out of your life.  My schedule, work, family, just life in general can in a word overwhelm you.  Here's my advice to you-and to myself-for dealing with being overwhelmed.


1.  Recognize that overwhelm isn't real.  Its not something that attacks us.  It's a feeling we experience based upon a belief there's too much to do and too little time to do it.  It's fear-plain and simple,  And once we recognize and acknowledge it, we're better equipped to deal with it.


2.  Be grateful.  Appreciate the fact that you have the opportunities and the projects that allow you to contribute to the world.


3.  Accept the fact that you will never be caught up.  If you're a person of action, someone with goals and aspirations, it's not likely that you'll ever have an empty inbox.  The times in which we live and our ability to do meaningful work throughout our lives leads me to believe that we will always have tings left to do.


4.  Understand that we can only think about one thing at a time.  I think that "multi-tasking" is highly over rated.  We can really only handle one thought in our mind at a time.  Trying to think about more than one thing as once is very tiring and frustrating.


5.  Be selective.  The biggest weapon you have in fighting overwhelm is your ability to prioritize what you need to do.  By making intelligent  choices based upon urgent, non-urgent, important and non-important, we can focus better.  Basing these choices on our core values, we can relax in the belief that we're doing what matters the most.  


6.  Delegate.  Learn to gain the assistance of others.  People like to help but you have to ask!  Anything that can be adequately done by someone else should be delegated.  It's an important skill worth developing.


7.  Learn to say "no".  Our feelings of overwhelm largely come from taking on too much.  If you're asked to do something don't be too quick to accept the assignment.  You might think you're being a nice person, but if you succumb to health problems because of it, you won't be nice much longer.


8.  Take care of yourself.  Remember to take breaks in your life.  The tendency for many of us is to work harder and longer.  In actuality we can get more done in less time and with less effort if we take care of ourselves first.  It's not being selfish...it's being smart!


9.  Breathe!  When we feel overwhelmed we have a tendency to tighten up instead of relaxing.  It seems like there are many things at times we HAVE to do, but the only thing we REALLY have to do is breathe!  Take some long deep breaths and feel yourself returning to the present.


10.  Focus on the task at hand.  If we're thinking about what's NOT getting done or all the other things we have to do, we can't focus well on what we're doing now.  Think about  what you are doing rather than what you're not getting done.  Otherwise, you going to be defeated by your feelings of overwhelm.

"Talk to Me"

Why are people so stressed out any more?  Why is it that were so busy we don't have the time to sit down and talk to each other?  When did 144 characters on Twitter become enough?  Why are many of us "stressed" now days?


Part of the problem I believe any more is that even though we now have a myriad of ways to "communicate" with one another, e.g. Face book, email, Twitter, texting, oh the thing called a land line phone, and yes the cellphone, we really are developing into a culture that has no idea on how to "talk".  Thus one of the reasons why so many people get "stressed" out. 


 A friend I know tells me that a co-worker is no more than 20 feet away and sends 1-2 line emails throughout the workday rather than walking the 15 steps or so and actually communicating with said person.  It's so much more productive to then send an email back to them and then have them send a thank you email in return and you sending another email saying 'no problem' and then them saying 'thank you'...ok so I'm being slightly sarcastic.  


Recently I was at a restaurant around noon on a Sunday.  One family it appeared had just come from church. Mom and Dad, three children with granpa and granma.  They no more than got seated when the Mom was on her cellphone along with all three children!  The youngest was like 7 or 8 years old.  A moment later, Dad was texting.  And there sat Granma and Granpa sitting on their hands.  Not quite a Norman Rockwell moment.  And don't get me started when the waiter came to their table to take their order!  (If I had been the waiter I would have shouted, "Your attention please".)  


I heard on the Discovery Channel that there is now more technology in today's cell phone than what was in the Apollo spacecraft that went to the moon!  Now I'm not criticizing all the great technology that has come down the pike in the last decade or so.  But take someones phone from them for 30 minutes...no 15 minutes and there's a good chance they have a panic attack.  Couples use to tell a counselor, "we just don't talk any more".  Gosh what is it now...he just stopped "Twittering" me.


All I'm saying is this...let's talk to each other and listen to what's being said.  If you're in a relationship let the other person hear "I love you".      If you have kids "tell" them why something is unacceptable or why we don't act that way. "Show" people that you care by your actions rather than your Tweet.


Cellphone companies blast us everyday with commericals on why we should go with their "plan".  Hey with my plan you get unlimited minutes, any time day or night, anywhere coverage...for FREE.  Let's talk.  

The Class of '71...40 Years & Counting

The High School Reunion of 1971

FORTY YEARS!!!  Are you kidding me?  Wasn't it just the other day I was sitting in my Commerical Arts class with Raymond Atwood who was slightly aloof?  He would talk about his cottage in England.  Later that day I went to Kendall Natvig's Psychology class and he was talking about the Id, Ego and Super Ego or something like that.  Most of us actually did learn something.  Then there was Coach Bob Buckley out with the track team working his mind games with us.  How many track coaches do so smoking a pipe and looking all Ward Cleaver?
The Class of 1971 in Webster City, Iowa.  At the time we were the largest school in the conference...and yes our claim to fame was football.  Imagine that.  Coach Dick Tighe and his Lynx...that's all you had to say.  A god in his own time to many.  Big farm boys who basically beat up little farm boys.  Really...beating up the likes of the Eagle Grove Eagles.  They couldn't even come up with a different mascot name than that of the town.  And Clear Lake...ugh...they never won anything but always wanted everyone to know they lived by a lake.
Christmas formal I believe had as its theme "Crystal Blue Persuasion."  I tracked down Tommy James and the Shondels on You Tube the other day still singing that song in a New York club and believe it or not sounding really good.  Let's see what Justin Bieber sounds like in forty years!
Webster City was a vibrant town back then.  Main street was the main street in town.  There were clothing stores to drug stores, hardware stores. pet stores, real full-service gas stations, and even a few fast food places. ("Fast" is a relative term in a Midwest farm town).  The washing machine/dryer factory in town employed hundreds if not thousands of people.  Shoot I even put in my stint there one summer.  That's another story.
Then comes the 40th reunion of the Webster City Lynx.  Funny thing...in some ways 40 years changes everything and in some ways nothing.  First, the reunion was held at the Country Club.  I was never in the country club until my 35th reunion and now my fortieth.  I learned early on that I lived literally on the other side of the railroad tracks.  People from that part of town weren't country club people.  My side of town was referred to as "Shoe Town."  I never knew that years and years ago there actually was a shoe factory.  History says it burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances...but its ghost lived on in the people of the east side.  Kids who went to my elementary school, Hilltop, were looked upon as a lower class.  Imagine that in a town of 8,000 people. 
Time has changed Webster City.  The executives of Electrolux who ran the local factory made a less then brilliant decision to move t Juarez, Mexico known as the Murder Capital of the world.  Along with that brain-dead decision went the lives of thousands of American workers and their families.  As you drive around town now you can hear, "Dead city walking'.
I imagine it won't be long that our beloved high school will suffer the same fate and will in the near future  consolidate with one or more schools just to survive.  No more Purple and Gold.
I went to visit my elementary school Hilltop.  Its been empty for years now and one local resident told me it will be tore down in the near future.  I had the opportunity to walk through it.  I'm not even sure rodents wanted to be in it.
And then there was the actual reunion itself.  Reunions are strange.  What doesn't change is that the people who hung out together in high school still gravitate to each other.  Most live in other cities if not other states.  But throw everyone into a reunion setting and like magic everyone moves into their old cliques.  Humans are fascinating creatures.  I admit there were some people I wanted to see and others...well...let's just say I couldn't get to everyone.  That hadn't changed in forty years.  Does the name Al Bundy from "Married with Children" ring a bell?  
You get old in forty years.  I quick glance and I thought I was in the local nursing home.  People who were bald, slightly overweight, and talking about their grandchildren and retiring...nursing home fodder right? 
Sadly in 40 years over 20 classmates have passed on and will be missed.  For a class of 220 that's quite a few so soon. 
So what's changed in forty years...not much...a lot...both.  The only constant is change.  As I left the reunion many were already talking about the 45th reunion.  Time will tell.  But for now Happy 40th to the Purple and Gold of Webster City, Iowa.