Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about overwhelm drowning. And the reason is because last last week, two weeks ago, over the space about seven days, a lot of things happened. And I had to take a break for my own well being and mental health. And the thing was, I kind of need some of it I knew was going to happen, and some of it was very unexpected. And so I'm going to talk through how I dealt with it and hope it helps somebody. I know that so this week happened, and I know that for the last four days to have a weekend day on a Thursday and Friday that I was going to try and take some time off. Even though I was taking time off. I knew that I had things planned I had events on the Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. which involves me socializing. And so this Friday, spent the entire day just chilling. I went out to eat. And that was kind of it. The person I was with was like, so you paid to go out and then you just dating in, I'm like, Yes. And it was great. And then Saturday I had to go out and I ended up socializing with people and it was in a place with a lot of people and pushing and shoving and very loud, and it was fine for a bit and then I went home and I came back out again, actually, I got a second wind, put some flat shoes on I went out and broke it a little bit. And then came Sunday,

where

went out again during the day and night for like a doubleheader. And it was loud socializing,

which was fine. And then come Monday. I was like, I

I feel a little Well, uh, normally, and this wasn't socializing in big groups, it's just one on one, one on two, one on three socializing. And normally I'm quite fine with that. But what it also happened at the start of that week, is that I'd gotten a bunch of new clients, or clients have come back from vacation or like, whatever it is that they were doing. So my normal flow of work was then like, doubled or tripled. And I had this to do list that just seem to keep on growing and growing and growing as more people's Tell me more stuff. And I felt like I was drowning. That's That's you. And it might seem like an overreaction, but it was, you want to provide the best service and help everybody but people will address this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing, that thing, this thing, the other thing and then you go to the next meeting and be this thing, that thing, that thing, that thing, the other thing, and the next meeting and so on and so forth. I spent one day in meetings that gave me a really long to do this. And so what I had to do was put my phone on airplane mode because my computer Go to a different room, meditate, breathe. And I found this meditation, which was, because I have an app that I kind of scroll through. And it was wonderful because they talked to you through exactly how to get through the overwhelm. And then had a really nice message at the end of which felt really personal. Even though I know this message goes out to like hundreds of millions of people, it felt really personal to me. Then I sat, and I brain dumped everything that I thought I had to do. And of course, you forget stuff in brain dump some more, then you go away, do something mundane like washing up, showering, whatever you need to do, then come back brain dump some more, take that brain dump. And for me, what I do is then categorize it into my clients, then categorize it into what's urgent or when or what has a due date. And then I put it into my project management tool that then gave me some sort of order. And then I figured out what I could delegate what I could outsource what I was going to do when it needed to be done. Also with the fact that I will be offline for a bit coming up in the future. So I need to make sure that things worked around that as well. Just taking that time out during that specific meditation, brain dumping, then going to do something Monday. And then brain demming, again, was like a pressure valve release. I mean, I also talked to some friends, but it made things better. Just getting it out of my head meant that I could then I came up with ideas about other things, or how to automate things or how to make things better how to do this quickly, I realized that I needed the space in my head. That's what was missing. So now what I have to do is make sure my head doesn't get filled with too much stuff. And so to do that, for me, I have to have a notebook around all the time so I can dump stuff straight to the notebook that keeps my head clear, and helps me I don't know if recharge is the right word, but it definitely stops me from feeling overwhelmed. And I get into a good habit and then sometimes I stop and then I realize I have to get back into that habit again. So what do you do to clear your head? How do you bring back balance in Your life I'd love to hear, please email me at Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping introverts build their brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.