How to Get Through an Extremely Busy Time at Work

Compartmentalize: When engaged in tasks or parts of tasks you actually enjoy, make sure to focus on them exclusively.

If you know the task is important and you’re approaching it efficiently, allow yourself to enjoy it. For recurrent hard assignments, think about the parts of it you like best at the beginning, middle, and end stages.

When you’re very busy, it’s tempting to try to cram productive activities, like responding to email or thinking through decisions, into any small crack of time. This could be when you’re standing in line at the supermarket, waiting for a presentation to start, or in the five minutes between finishing one thing and joining a meeting. When you’re slammed, it can seem essential to work during these moments.

However, you can try not to fill every minute; save small scraps of time for mental rest.

Add physical decompression rituals to your day, perhaps when you wake up, go to bed, or take a bathroom break.

Try using context triggers — deciding which moments in the day you’ll use to physically decompress. For instance, maybe you can take some slow breaths whenever you go to the bathroom, or just after you wake up or just before you get into bed.

You can buffer yourself against the stress of feeling rushed and overloaded if you recurrently pair simple sources of pleasure with particular activities you’re not as excited to do. Pair pleasure experiences, like a favorite snack, with ones that feel more stressful.