How to Keep Moving Forward When There Is Too Much on Your Plate

13 min readSep 23, 2023

Tips and Tricks from Personal Experience

You have too much going on. Everything seems to be happening at the same time. But that’s not all. Things are also going wrong. Projects are taking longer than you thought. Unexpected problems pop up right and left. Feeling overwhelmed?

As Murphy’s law goes, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. That’s bad enough. But check out another version of this law — anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.

No, I am not a pessimist. I just prefer we don’t lie to ourselves and expect life to be all sunshine and rainbows. See my recent article titled If All is Going Well, Stay Alert. Yes, we want to do well in our jobs or have our business succeed. We want to have good relationships. We want to spend time learning and attending to our hobbies, and reading (which I don’t consider a hobby). We want to take care of our health, our house, and our finances. We want to travel, watch movies, listen to music. And so much more. And all at the same time. And so we go at full speed, bobbing and weaving to avoid life’s punches. Good luck with avoiding bruises or even knockouts.

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius famously said: “The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing… life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.” Tough is the default mode in life. It is supposed to be. Easy means something is off.

In this article, I’d like to go over a few things you could do to handle your tasks if you are feeling overwhelmed. How you could still move forward despite seemingly carrying an impossible load. But I don’t want to just talk about hacks or shortcuts that can give you a sense of moving forward. To really move forward, there is a foundation you need to build and maintain. So before the specific tips, there are two things that you need to address.

First off, you need the right mindset.

Getting frustrated or angry is not helpful. Why is this happening to me? — is probably the most useless question we ask ourselves. Absolutely useless. Even harmful. It does not bring us relief and does not move us forward. All it does is intensify negative thinking.

But you cannot just decide not to have negative thoughts. You need a personal operating system. A guiding philosophy. A set of specific steps you take to deal with negativity. I would recommend Stoicism, which is a deep, well-thought-out framework that goes beyond having a stiff upper lip which is what a lot of people tend to think about Stoicism unfortunately. Stoicism is not only ancient philosophy but a pragmatic set of practices and exercises that help with what life throws at you. This philosophy has been the foundation of cognitive behavior therapy, arguably one of the most effective methods of dealing with anxiety and depression.

Maybe it is something else for you. A religion. A spiritual practice. A set of mantras or rituals that you have tried and tested. Things that work. That’s great. Whatever gets you out of the negative thinking. Find peace where you are (check out my article here).

Do not catastrophize (here you can read more about this concept). Sure, to you, your problems seem like the most serious thing. You need to remind yourself there are people who are dealing with these exact problems. There are also people who deal with far worse circumstances. This is where your personal philosophy can help with mental models and practical exercises to reframe your perspective on your reality.

Second, understand that escaping is a mistake.

Avoiding your problems is never going to help you resolve them. Escape is a mistake for you, for your loved ones, for your purpose in this life. Escape gives you temporary relief, but that is it. You need to face your issues. No one says it will be easy. Monsters left unattended tend to grow with time, not disappear.

Note that when I talk about escaping in this context, I don’t just mean physically removing yourself from wherever it is you are struggling. I also mean alcohol, drugs, whatever gives you an illusion of an escape and makes you forget about what you have to sort out, sooner or later.

Get your mind battle-ready.

And this is where you will experience a paradox. It is precisely when you embrace the fight, it turns out that the monsters are mostly scary in your imagination. The reality, it turns out, is far more trivial and manageable.

This here, can be a life-changing insight. As Epictetus said: “It is not things that upset us, but our judgments about things” Make your mind your friend. Reframe, change your perspective, and welcome the challenge. These are fundamental concepts in both Stoicism and cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Now with specific tips. Here we go:

Accept you won’t get everything done. Accept that you will be late on some things. Have reasonable expectations of yourself.

That said:

Raise your standards. You can do much more than you think. Test your limits. As Naval Ravikant puts it: “No matter how high your bar is, raise it”. Or as Kobe Bryant said in his inimitable way: “No matter how hard you work, you can work harder”. So take it easy on yourself, but not too easy. How can you do that?

Here is how:

Ruthlessly prioritize. Remember, being overwhelmed is not just about how much you have to do. It is also when you focus on the wrong things. When things that matter to you are not moving forward. When you keep busy, but not productive. Don’t just do small, unimportant things to give yourself the impression that you are getting something done. Ticking things off of your to-do list is not moving forward. So focus on high-impact tasks. Those go first. Identify what is going to have the maximum impact on your life. Do those first. If that means you need to wake up at 6:00 every morning to work out, or to work on a specific project, then that is what you should do. If you don’t have a distinct feeling of moving forward, or you are not getting any joy from what you do, you need to review your priorities.

But how to go about prioritizing? There are so many things that are important you might say. Here are some specific tips:

Prioritize physical activity! Nothing has anywhere near the kind of a positive impact on your life as physical activity. Don’t skip exercising because you have too much going on. Health comes first. FIRST. As the longevity expert, Peter Attia says in his amazing book Outlive, exercise is by far the most potent longevity and health drug. It is far more important than the diet or any other aspect of your life. I am going to shamelessly pitch Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as one of the best choices for physical activity (here is my article on why you should do BJJ), but any activity is better than none — swim, cycle, run, lift weights, hike — do whatever it is you enjoy doing.
Prioritize sleep. Try not to neglect sleep. You can’t make up for lost sleep. Being short on sleep negatively affects your cognitive abilities. Sleep is the best performance-enhancing drug there is. Just read Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep (my takeaways here)
Say No. Or as I like to say, I don’t care. Understand that WHEN YOU SAY YES TO SOMETHING, YOU ARE SAYING NO TO EVERYTHING ELSE. If you choose to work on something specific for an hour, that means during that hour, you are not working on anything else. So choose wisely.
If you are a manager, don’t micromanage! Even if you could do any task better than your supervisees, doing these tasks is not what you are paid to do. It is amazing how many managers don’t understand this simple truth. Do the work that is appropriate to your level.
Delay what you can (without too much damage to your health, reputation, relationships, or finances). If you don’t think that the task you are given is really a priority for your company, but still needs to be done, do it at the closest time possible to the deadline. Or try to extend the deadline. Some things deserve to be procrastinated about. Procrastinate wisely!
Invert. This is a very useful mental model. Rather than asking yourself — what should I prioritize, try inverting the question. For example — what should I de-prioritize? What is not urgent or important? Or, here is a more advanced version I like to use — what is the task that if not done, will have the largest negative impact on my life?
Batch and prioritize tasks by context. This I picked up from David Allen’s Getting Things Done (my takeaways here). We tend to prioritize tasks by importance or urgency. But try instead to organize your tasks by how, when, where, and with whom you need to do them. For example, I batch my phone calls and do them while commuting. This is batching by location. Or if there are people you meet periodically, just pile issues you need to discuss with them and then discuss several in one go, rather than bothering them each time for a separate issue. This is batching by person. Or when you know you are usually low energy, focus on going through routine tasks that don’t need much brain power. This is batching my energy levels.
Use your mornings wisely. I have never been a morning person, but every time I have gotten up early and focused on some key tasks in the morning, the rest of the day went much easier than usual. If you can, ritualize your days — at least mornings and/or evenings. Andrew Huberman and Cal Newport strongly recommend a focused work session early in the morning. In my case, I have 4–6 things that I want to accomplish daily and I try to squeeze as many of these as possible into the morning hours. I have written a separate article on this, called Do We Need Daily Routines and Rituals? — check it out.

How can we focus on multiple things at the same time? Or re-focus after an interruption?

Train your ability to focus. There is no multitasking. Only rapid task-switching. But you can train yourself to get laser-focused on a moment’s notice. Attention is not something we automatically have, and if anything, the modern society, most of all the internet, smartphones, and social media are ACTIVELY working to destroy our ability to focus on what we want to focus on. So you need to mindfully train your attention. Check out Andrew Huberman’s advice on how to do this. For example, he recommends engaging in 90-minute intensely focused sessions once a day. As a way to prepare for this session, he recommends using the visual field to train our focus. Set a timer for 30 seconds per day and try to focus on one object. You can blink. You can keep adding time (something small, say 5 seconds per day). You can use this exercise to start your 90-minute session.
Use any and all opportunities for handling a task. I always carry with me the book I am reading. If I get an unexpected time window, even if it is a 10-minute wait, I never just sit there bored. I can read something, handle some short work tasks, make phone calls, etc. To be able to do this, you need to train your ability to concentrate instantly. This also ties up well with the advice about prioritizing by context.

Now. How do you get your tasks under control so you always have a full picture of everything you need to do?

Write everything down. All of it. My father once told me the Russian saying: “The dullest pencil is sharper than the sharpest memory”. Don’t waste mental energy on trying to remember if you missed something, or by trying to hold too much in your mind at the same time. Write things down so your brain can focus on what it is meant to do — to think, to problem solve, to be creative.
Have overarching vision and plans. Do planning at least once a year. Get a picture of where you are and where you want to be heading. Periodically review your goals and plans. Track your progress. Make sure to make decisions about changes in your plans based on evidence, not how you feel one morning.
Have a healthy relationship with E-mail. It took me a while to arrive at a system that works for me. I give a lot of credit to David Allen’s GTD framework, although my system is a result of a mix of influences. The two most important things in my e-mail management are:
- separate processing e-mails (delete, delegate, handle, file) from working on them/replying. Anything that takes less than two minutes, is handled on the spot. Anything that takes longer, goes into my Action folder and I deal with the messages there later. This way, important e-mails are not mixed with trivial ones but are filtered into a separate place. Another benefit is that my inbox is typically empty.
- no elaborate filing system. Anything that does not go into the Action folder, goes into Filing (or Archive). One folder. Because when you need to find something, you use the search function anyway. Having an elaborate filing system is a waste of time. And more often than not, it gives you a false sense of confidence in your system.

Above all, strive for consistency. No need for a heroic effort on one day, followed by an inability to do anything for a few days after that. Sure, sometimes you will passionately work on something and will not want to stop, but perhaps you should pace yourself. Small consistent progress. Incremental steps. Atomic habits. Kaizen. If you persist, you will discover that over time, your focus gets better, your ability to produce improves and you can do more. Suddenly people around you will start telling you how surprised they are you can do so much — nothing surprising. You’ve just trained yourself.

When I go over these things, I get different reactions from people. Let’s look at the most typical ones:

No one is this disciplined. Trust me, neither am I. You don’t have to be perfect. You just need to have systems that work most of the time. If you drop the ball every once in a while, that’s ok. Don’t freak out. Just go back to your system. For example, I use the Passion Planner as my preferred paper planner. This year, I use the Weekly Undated Planner. It is great for me, precisely because I am not 100% disciplined. You will see me diligently writing my plans, appointments, meetings, targets, and all that for several weeks, and then you will notice, oh, one week is missing. Yes, sometimes a week can be so crazy, so much happening, that I don't even get to write in my planner. I mean if this never happens to you, good for you. But when it happens to me, I just go back to it as of the week after. So my answer — dropping the ball is ok. Just don’t stay there. Go back to your routine as soon as you can.

You won’t get to enjoy your life like this. When do you stop to smell the roses? All the time. If you have systems and processes that are reliable most of the time, that means you are already performing and producing at a pace and volume that is ahead of most people. I watch movies and TV shows, YouTube podcasts, and concerts all the time. I can relax when I choose to, precisely because I know I can trust my systems — I know what is where, what is completed, what is pending, where I’ve left off on each project, and where I will need to pick it up.

Do you not get tired? Of course, I do. Make sure to rest when you need to (check out my article Rest Comprehensively). But you can only truly rest if your mind is at ease.

This sounds very lonely. Yes, you might lose some friends. Not everyone around you will appreciate that you are moving forward. This can come as a shock at first, but perhaps you need to upgrade your circle of friends. The more you move forward and learn, the more you come in contact with interesting people who are learning the same things you are. Rather than spend time with emotional vampires who just complain all the time and don’t seem to be doing much with their lives, you will get to know people who share the same passions as you, who can support you and give you useful advice every once in a while and who will genuinely cheer you on. Good for you, I say. Being a lone wolf is not a good idea. Having a community of like-minded individuals is a powerful mechanism not only to help you move forward but also to handle anxiety and depression.

Let me give you a quick example of how I apply this approach in practice. In October this year, I was planning to participate in the European Continental Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Istanbul. But, the universe decided otherwise. I had a nasty meniscus injury in August and have not been able to train for over a month. The injury came at a time when in addition to the pressures of doing two jobs, I also had to deal with my son’s student visa application. Dealing with the stress of it all without my usual method of stress relief — Brazilian jiu-jitsu, was tough.

So the very first thing, remind myself of what has lately become my mantra — The Obstacle is the Way.

I first clarified my perspective on the situation. There is no point in engaging in destructive self-talk. Being angry is a waste of time and energy. Being sad — same. Yes, I have to miss the tournament, but my objective in doing jiu-jitsu is not to participate in or win one tournament. It is to keep improving at jiu-jitsu indefinitely. It is to learn, grow, and stay in good shape. So I focus on the long-term.

The injury can help me understand the patterns of movement that I should be more careful about. Perhaps I can focus more on warming up, stretching, mobility exercises, and focused weight lifting to reduce the chance of future injury.

In the short term, I use the time freed up from my inability to do Brazilian jiu-jitsu to do more reading. Instead of the exercise I cannot do, I focus on what I can— push-ups, pull-ups, and soon after exercises for knee recovery recommended by my physiotherapist. This allows me to keep in relatively good shape, and to make the return to jiu-jitsu as smooth as possible.

And so on. You see where I am going with this.

Give it a try.

If you liked this read, here are some of my articles you might want to explore further:

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How to Keep Moving Forward When There Is Too Much on Your Plate

Written by Rational Badger