I'm overwhelmed - help me!

Don't you hate that feeling of overwhelm? You know you can start a working day knowing the lay of the land, knowing what you need to action and then by 10am there are 4 new meetings in your diary and 6 new pieces of work that all have an (unrealistic) and short deadline. Often with no flexibility.

There are two definitions of overwhelm. One is "to have a strong emotional effect on", which could be the impact of what I have described above. However, for me, this is more of an affect of a situation like above. I prefer the second one, which is more accurate, "to bury or drown beneath a huge mass of something".

The something here is can be anxiety, stress, pressure. It can be internal or external. And whether or not it is actually real is subjective and circumstantial.

A tip to deal with overwhelm is to not group a mass of "problems" together.

One strategy is to split them out and deal with them separately. Focus on them one at a time. It is important to manage the expectations of demanding people - just because a person is demanding and wants their needs to be met first doesn't mean it is the most important task.

Another tip is to breathe.