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Overtaxed by all the unfinished tasks hanging over you? There is a solution | Oliver Burkeman
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Feeling overwhelmed by unfinished tasks
We often feel overwhelmed when we have too many tasks floating around in our heads. One way to calm that feeling of anxiety is to follow productivity guru David Allen's advice: You really should capture your open loops.
An open loop is any kind of commitment or task that's hanging around your life, but you haven't been able to deal with it. The birthday gift you need to send, that idea you had about a community garden, your desire to visit the pyramids.
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Your brain struggles to store open loops
Open loops act as a drag on your attention. It pops up at the wrong time, or leave you worried that there's something you're forgetting.
If you store them somewhere else, then your brain can stop struggling to keep them, and you'll find yourself more focused and relaxed, even if you have not finished any of the tasks.
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Closing open loops
Select an app, or open a text file, or use a physical notebook, and dump every open loop that you can think of in one place, not in multiple apps. Add new items as soon as they float into your mind.
The payoff is that you won't have to obtain all your peace of mind from completing every item on the list, as the list is certainly too much for one person to handle. Faithfully capturing open loops will bring an instant dose of relief.
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The Circadian Rhythm
- The circadian rhythm is what we call our body's masterclock. It is the timekeeper of the body which keeps the cells in our body running smoothly, helps fights against ch...
Healthy Circadian Rhythm
Healthy circadian rhythms rely on regularity and stability— for the timing of light, the timing of exercise, and the timing of meals.
Our bodies are accustomed to the exposure of light and darkness on a regular basis. The circadian rhythm is reset on a daily basis and it is the one that determines the healthiness of our cellular health and sleeping patterns.
The Impact of Circadian Rhythms to Our Health
- We slowly deteriorate our health whenever we disrupt the natural cycle of our circadian rhythm. It becomes disrupted with every late nights, irregular meal times, and using our phones in the middle of the night.
- Extreme circadian instability is what happens when we do not take care of our internal clock. It often leads to a bunch of chronic health problems such as impaired immune function, obesity, and some forms of cancer.
- The key to reduce the risk of health problems, stability is needed.
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Energy-management strategies
Organization has less to do with making lists and putting things in a calendar and more to do with energy levels.
When energy is high, you feel ready to tackle any task. When it's low,...
Close loops in your head
"Open loops" are all those tasks that you've had on your mind for weeks, months or even years that are still not completed. They quietly drain a lot of energy out of you by taking up space in your subconscious.
Take an hour, day, or week to close the loop and do that thing.
Minimize task switching
To preserve your energy, focus on starting one "type" of task and finish it before moving onto the next.
You can even organize your days for various kinds of tasks to keep the different types of energy contained.
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Limit the time spent reading news
“Headline anxiety” is a growing problem.
One way to reduce the impact of the non-stop news cycle is to use screen-time trackers, available for most smartphones, to limit...
Turn off push notifications
If the urge to scroll is too strong to resist, then at least turning off your push notifications from news apps can stop you from being assailed with breaking events.
Read the good news
If we focus on the bigger picture, such as the proportion of people living in extreme poverty halving in the past 20 years, it may be easier to remain optimistic.
Seek another perspective. If you hear about something terrible, ask yourself: "if there had been a positive improvement, would I have heard about that?”