Matt Ragland shares a two-list bullet journal method to manage overwhelm: first, write down every task and commitment to get them out of your head, then review each one to decide if it stays, when it happens, and how long it takes. This approach helps you focus on what actually matters.
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Hi everyone, my name is Matt, and welcome to another Bullet Journal productivity video. I'm excited but also tired at the end of this week, and I have a lot of things going on in my head. We already had a video earlier this week, but I wanted to hop on and share something with you because number one, I made a commitment to you about 5 Minute Fridays. That's the series that we're doing right now of sharing a short version of an idea and a solution that I've been working through this week. The topic for today is feeling overwhelmed, feeling like you have too many things to do. And that is certainly the case for me. And I've seen several people talking about it online just this week. I know it's a hot topic in terms of like, what do we give, what do we give our time to? How do we prioritize the people, projects, and purpose that we have in our lives? Those are all things that I think about every single day and want to share with you. Today, Friday, I feel very overwhelmed. I feel pretty stressed out. I feel like I've committed myself to too many tasks, all of which are very self-inflicted. Now I'll tell you the solution that I have, the way that I think through it, the way that I have found most helpful for processing overwhelm and stress when I have those times in my life, not sleeping as much as I should, not feeling 100% So maybe I shouldn't have done this video. Whatever. I was, I was really close to not doing this video at all and just making a post. I know everyone would have, would have understood. I think what is important is actually like I'm in the moment, I'm in this moment right now of feeling kind of overwhelmed and stressed and I have more to-dos than I have time to do them in. But let me tell you what I do when I'm faced in in this moment. I'll take out the Bullet Journal or notebook, whatever. The, the tool is not necessarily important. It is important to me to be able to write something out. David Allen said in his recent interview on the Tim Ferriss Show that the mind is for making ideas, not necessarily for holding them. And I really like that. It's a good way of explaining something that I've been doing for a long time, which is getting things out of my head and onto paper because I just process them better. So when I'm feeling overwhelmed, when I feel like I have too many tasks in the time that I've given myself to do them, then I'll write everything down. I'll write down every task, I'll write down every to-do, I'll write down every person that I feel I've committed to that maybe I've been letting down or I haven't been as good a contact with, or maybe I said I would do something for a person I haven't been able to follow through on that. All of those things are true for me right now, but I'll write down every single one in my Bullet Journal, and then I'll go through them one by one. I'll meditate on them for just a few moments and decide, is this something I still need to be committed to? If so, when do I need to do it? What's the timeline? How long do I think I would need to be able to complete this task or commitment? And so that is how I go through a list of tasks when I feel like, as I do today, I have more things to do than the time I have to do them. I hope that is helpful for you. I— whether you're watching this around the, around the time it's released, or you're watching in the future, I hope that you take this to heart and think about some ways that you could, one, just be kind to yourself. We tend to— I mean, I know I tend to overcommit to some things. But also looking and saying hopefully you can use some of these strategies to process the tasks and overwhelm that you feel in times of stress. I'm thinking about you, and if you want to drop something in the comments below, let us know how you're doing and what you do when you feel stressed out or overwhelmed or you have too many things to do in the time that you have been given to do them. I know we'd love to hear from you and support each other. As, yeah, we go through busy seasons in life, and it's definitely a busy season for me. Like I said, a lot of fun self-inflicted things, things I'm really excited about, still kind of leads to this feeling sometimes like, oh man, how am I going to do— how am I going to do all these things? So hope I get to hear from you. Leave a comment. If you're here for the first time, check out the other videos that are going to be linked in the end screens and also in the description below about using a bullet journal to be more productive, be more mindful, and focus on the people, projects, and purpose that matter the most to you. So go ahead and give it a like, subscribe if you're new here, and I'll see you in the next video. Take care. Bye.
