Overwhelm is the condition of Too Much – usually Too Much To Do (which is what I designed the Quicksand handbook to relieve).

Sometimes overwhelm shows up as Too Much To Feel. Other times it shows up as Too Much of the Unexpected.

This winter I discovered another form of overwhelm: Too Much of the Old.

It has a lot in common with the Overwhelm of Too Much Stuff. But it’s less about clutter and more about ignoring what has changed, what is no longer needed, what has outgrown its usefulness.

It started with realizing my plans for the current year wouldn’t arrange themselves into something pleasing because what I was trying to shoehorn into my calendar was my 2010 dream for 2012, not this year’s vision.

And noticing that my website didn’t reflect how I think about Time anymore. At all. And that I was resisting sending out a newsletter because I couldn’t suggest even once more than anyone “get in gear.”

And then realizing I rarely worked in my office anymore because both my computer and my physical space were filled with the detritus of the past three years.

I noticed that half my inbox was filled with subscriptions I didn’t read anymore. And that half my overhead was going to services I don’t use anymore.

Dealing with the office soon led to the realization that I’d also have to deal with the basement (because how can you archive, say, your tax records when you can’t get to the file cabinet?) – which just turned out to be a way-back machine to the 90s.

( In hindsight, I can see it actually started with wanting to be like that tree. )

My surroundings had become uncomfortable not because of Too Much Stuff, but because much of what I held on to – sometimes carefully, sometimes carelessly – was well past its best-used-by date.

Filled with relics, my space mirrored back to me who I was then, not who I am now. In many ways, it mirrored my fears and losses more than my hopes and gains. And with no room for anything new to come into my life, it couldn’t mirror who I am becoming.

Of course, these were not the conditions I set out to create. I know better. It’s just that in giving phases other than the dropping off that follows any creative cycle priority for several years – sometimes because I had to, other times because I felt I had to – things… accumulated.

I can’t say in hindsight that those were poor choices then. All I know is that continuing to put off a thorough purge was the wrong choice now, because all that old had become crushingly overwhelming. I had reached the point of being paralyzed by all the anachronisms in my life.

Here’s the thing about anachronisms: they keep you out of alignment with the present. And when you are out of alignment, it’s hard to move.

It’s not unlike your spine being out of alignment. Every step, every action hurts – which makes it nearly impossible to do anything. And the pain doesn’t go away until you bring those bones back into their proper relationship. In the case of Overwhelm of the Old, nothing gets better or easier until you remove what doesn’t belong in the present.

So along with my sweetheart, I have spent much past month purging my stuff. By the gigabyte. By the dollar. By the curbside recycling bin. By the carload.

I’m stunned both by what I’ve saved and the sheer quantity of it. Yet it explains a lot of things. I’m learning heaps from letting it all go. (There has been much note-taking – notes that will likely find their way into a Studio Intensive next winter.)

I wish I knew how much it all weighed.

Because with every load that leaves our house, I feel lighter. Freer. More in alignment. As these relics flow out, so does the pain – and new ideas and opportunities are flowing in. New energy. New optimism. New confidence. New excitement! [squee! I'm building an Atelier!]

• • • • •

The next time your are feeling overwhelmed (maybe that’s right now) – ask yourself what specifically you have Too Much of. Is it too many activities and commitments? Too much stuff? Or are you coping with Too Much of the Old?

Removing the anachronisms in your business and life – not just your worldly belongings, but digital files, accounts, subscriptions and the like, maybe even a relationship or two – can shift what needs doing now from feeling impossible to doable – without having to rethink what needs doing now.

Removing what’s no longer in alignment with the present changes the circumstances in which you work and live – and that automatically shifts the relationship with your current activities.

You don’t have to undertake a comprehensive purge like I have. Just clearing one small area can lessen your sense of overwhelm. Start with the easy decisions. Handle the oldest messages in your inbox. Pull some old clothes out of a closet. File some papers. Donate a stack of books. Close a few accounts for services you don’t use anymore. Pass on the materials for that unfinished project to someone who is into that thing now the way you were then. Release an unused domain name. Find whatever is starting to make your refrigerator smell bad and throw it away.

Like me, you may feel you have more important things to do first. But if Too Much of the Old lies in the way of What Needs Doing Now, then it needs removing now – especially if you are feeling stuck or blocked. Movement – any kind of movement – begets movement. And releasing the Old allows the New to flow in much more easily.

My challenge to you: today, right now, identify and remove one anachronism from your business or life and see what happens. And if you like, share your results in the comments below.

• • • • •

Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about my plans for the coming year.

This is usually an easy, intuitive and enjoyable process for me. There’s nothing Planner Girl likes more than planning. And yet.

When I went to put those thoughts on paper, no matter how I rearranged my little sticky notes on my calendar, I still hated it. I could not form 2012 into a year I was looking forward to.

After an all-day marathon of planning, I gave up in disgust and frustration. Clearly I was making some false assumptions and other mistakes. And clearly I needed more than a snack break to see what they were.

After some venting, reflection and decent night’s sleep or two, I came back to the process refreshed and with a more open mind – and was immediately struck by several obvious errors.

One of which was the realization that all those little sticky notes wouldn’t arrange themselves into something pleasing because what I was trying to shoehorn into my calendar was last year’s dream for 2012, not this year’s vision.

And the telltale sign I was working with anachronistic aims and ideas that no longer held much appeal?

Very, very elaborate support systems.

Flow charts. Diagrams. Research into the MacGyvering of various online services. Drafts of long, confusing emails to my web ninja. Drafts of even longer and more convoluted “how this works” web pages.

Efficient? No. Effective? No. Streamlined? No.
Kind to anyone involved? No.

The polar opposite of keep things simple, sweetheart? Yes.

Here’s the thing, Lovelies:

That slide from simple and straightforward into something complicated and unwieldy is usually a sign that whatever the system is designed to support is something you don’t really want or need to continue or start in the first place. (Or at least a sign that you need to approach it from a completely different angle.)

Activities that are in alignment with our desires, skills, talents and capacity don’t need elaborate support systems. All that engineering and scaffolding is only necessary when you build someplace you shouldn’t – on the edge of a cliff, for instance.

Sometimes the best system is no system.

So I tossed more than half of my sticky notes.
And I’m feeling much better about 2012.

• • • • •

As you make your own plans for the coming year, where is complication showing up?

Consider whether that’s less a sign that you need better systems and more a sign that you need to drop something altogether.

• • • • •

An oldie, but a goodie from December 2009…

We are in the midst of the holiday season – and that can bring on a lot of overwhelm. Overwhelm of stuff, of tasks, of people, of food – of emotions.

This did not happen when I was a kid. The overwhelm of Christmas was a welcome thing. Bring it on! was what I would have said. It wasn’t so much the presents, but everything about it. All the traditions. The magic my mom and my aunt created every year.

I’ve always been grateful I wasn’t taught that Santa was “real” (not disputing the historic figure of St. Nicholas here, just the mainstream idea of Santa). I don’t think I would have bought it anyway. That guy? in the mall? dressed up in a costume? uh huh. yeah, right. Obviously not the real deal and there was no way I was sitting on his or any other stranger’s lap for a picture. (I remember being very stubborn on this point. I expect I was also quite smug about it.)

So I never experienced that sort of disillusionment with the holiday. But in recent years I have experienced other forms of disappointment, confusion, exhaustion, emptiness and resentment of the season. I wanted the magic back.

Here’s how I got it.

• • • • •

This is not mission control.

My goodness, the build-up to December 25 in this country! Advent calendars are used not for the purpose of spiritual preparation, but to assuage impatient children and grown-ups alike. And the countdown! Hurry! Just 27 shopping days ’til Christmas! (That’s an accurate number, by the way.) You’d think we were launching rockets or something. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1! And we have lift-off of spaceship BabyJesus!

No other holiday dominates popular culture during its season the way this one does. It even holds a special place in our economy. It’s crazy. And crazy-making.

Because there is no way there is enough time between now and then to create the kind of perfection that is advertised, to do all our culture demands we do to get ready for this one big day. Decorations. Food. Parties. Cards. Gifts. I can’t think of anything that compares to this weird combination of scarcity in the midst of total excess. Crazy. Making.

Magic-Restoration Step #1

Stop listening to the count-down. Which means tuning out the advertising. (Which means you’re also conveniently not getting the message that buying more will make your holiday more meaningful – more on that later.) Turn off the TV, stop the newspaper, put down the magazines. Have the groceries delivered so you don’t have to listen to awful awful carols while you shop if you need to.

Do whatever it takes to protect yourself from the message that there is so much you need to do and so little time in which to do it. Because neither is true.

• • • • •

It’s a season, not a day.

A few years back, the local paper printed a guide to winter holidays: Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanza and, of course, Christmas – except they made a distinction between secular Christmas and Christian Christmas. And there was just something so spot-on about the way it was written, about the accuracy of its humor (this wasn’t exactly a scholarly essay of comparative religion) that made me realize my celebration of Christmas was largely secular. That which I disdained in the popular culture’s celebration of the holiday was, for the most part, what I was doing too. No wonder it felt like something was off.

Now, I am not a church-going Christian (growing up in a house-church kind of spoiled me for that the way attending an alternative high school kind of spoiled me for mainstream educational institutions), but that particular belief system was the one I was raised with – and I’m loyal to it. But loyalty and familiarity with a faith are two different things…

In my moment of choosing to be in greater integrity with my heritage and beliefs, I realized I didn’t know very much about Christian Christmas. So I read up on it. (This being the internet age, it was not hard to do.) And the best thing I learned about Christmas was context. It is a holiday in a sequence of holidays (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany – some of you will recognize this as the liturgical calendar, but it was new to me).  The connections between them have as much importance and meaning as the holidays themselves.

Magic-Restoration Step #2

One of the best things I’ve done to regain a sense of purpose and meaning during the holidays has been to de-emphasize the day and honor the season – the whole season from Advent to Epiphany – instead of trying to smash everything into 24 hours. And then equally honor all the other seasons, all the other holidays in the liturgical calendar and other traditions that have meaning for me throughout the year. (Waverly Fitzgerald’s work has played a crucial role in helping me figure this out.)

Treating this one day as the main event is a sure path to disappointment. You know this if you’ve woken on the 26th feeling empty or relieved it’s all over. No one day can fulfill a year’s worth of meaning. It’s not a realistic thing to ask of yourself, your religion, your family and friends – or your bank account.

• • • • •

Know your symbols and traditions.

Somehow, deciding to celebrate a season of holidays allowed me to better pick and choose from all the symbols and traditions out there. By which I don’t mean I became a fundamentalist. In choosing a less secular celebration, I wasn’t inclined to give up decorating a Christmas tree because of its pagan origins, for example. It was just that in choosing what I wanted to honor, it was then much easier to select only those symbols and traditions that fit. More unexpectedly led to less.

In my research I discovered both a wider range of ways to mark the season than I was familiar with and background information that brought some of the magic back to traditions that had lost their meaning. (Again, hat-tip to Waverly.)

Magic-Restoration Step #3

Don’t just go through the motions. Educate yourself about the origins of the symbols and traditions you are using. Learn how other cultures celebrate this holiday. Get curious. Get anthropological. Decide which symbols and traditions have genuine meaning for you, which enhance your experience and which don’t. Then choose the best and leave the rest.

• • • • •

Just make stuff up.

One thing I’ve learned in recent years is it takes a surprisingly short period of time for something to become a “tradition.” Do it more than twice and you’ve got one. The time-worn traditions of my childhood? Not even as old as I am.

Much of the wonder and delight created by my mom and my aunt was stuff they just made up. And not for hifalutin religious reasons either. One of our most beloved and staying traditions is getting new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Which all began when we were toddlers so we’d look cute in the next morning’s pictures. No joke.

Magic-Restoration Step #4

If those two women can invent such magical traditions, so can you. As with Time and Systems and everything else, you are the only one who can best choose and create the circumstances that are right for you. You don’t have to follow anyone else’s script.

• • • • •

Let stuff go.

For me, the flip side of educating myself about symbols and realizing many so-called traditions are very young and not so profound is a greater willingness to let them go when they don’t fit.

Which sometimes means letting them go forever. But sometimes it just means not this year. For instance, I don’t always decorate. Some years I need the house to be a place where I can get away from it being unavoidably everywhere else.

The hardest time to let something go is when it involves letting a person go. Families change and grow, but they also shrink. Sometimes keeping a tradition can be a way to honor the past, but sometimes that’s all pain and no meaning. In that case, it can be better to let it go and introduce something new.

Magic-Restoration Step #5

Like building up to one day, hanging your happiness on certain things happening a precise way practically ensures disappointment. Not every year has to be the same, nor can it be. I find as long as a few key elements remain unchanged (stockings and a particular bread, for example), the rest can be flexible and reflect what I need and want right now – which usually leads to a more meaningful experience.

So, again, don’t just go through the motions. Be choosy. Try not doing those things that don’t excite you this year. See what happens. One thing’s for sure, the world will not stop turning if you skip a tradition or two. It may feel like a high-risk experiment, but it’s not really if you think about it. If you miss something, just bring it back next year.

• • • • •

Let stuff go.

This brings us back to Magic-Restoration Step #1. In deciding how I wanted to honor the holiday and the season, in choosing which symbols and traditions had most meaning for me, I realized even more than I had before how little the material elements of the holiday mattered to me. I like presents – giving and receiving them. I like feast days – good company and good food belong together. But it doesn’t take an endless amount of either to satisfy me. Enough is enough.

I’ve long been a fan of exchanging experiences rather than goods. It’s the thing I like most about the Advent Conspiracy, which emphasizes relational giving – then doing something generous with the money you would have spent on stuff.

Magic-Restoration Step #6

In recent years, our Day has gotten smaller and smaller. Less travel. Fewer people. Fewer gifts. Less food. More quiet. Almost as though we’re distilling it down to its essence, its essentials. So, we don’t do and have much, but it is strong and saturated and therefore satisfying in its simplicity.

And because we haven’t crammed the season full of stuff and stuff, there is a spaciousness to the holiday,  there are openings for meaning and magic to enter.

I don’t really miss anything I’ve let go of. Which doesn’t mean I don’t have nostalgic memories of the days of more, the happy overwhelm of my childhood. But more stuff isn’t going to bring the magic of those days back.

I have to keep inventing and seeking and opening to new magic. And so do you.

In summary (the Twitter version):
There’s no rush. You’ve got a whole season. There are lots of ways to do this. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Enough is enough.

• • • • •

How To Get Out of the Quicksand of Overwhelm now includes a bonus guide: Finding Your Holiday Quicksand Way-Around. If you’ve got that sinking feeling about the season or your to-do list in general, this handbook is for you.

The bonus holiday guide is included in your purchase of the Handbook – and available through December 15. [ learn more ]

• • • • •

There is a tree in our neighborhood that always is the first to change its leaves in fall. And it doesn’t just go out first, it goes out in a blaze of red-orange glory. It’s stunning. Every year.

I want to be like that tree.

I want to let go of what needs to be released when it needs to be released.

No clinging.
No dilly-dallying.
No second-guessing.
No maybe-I-will-need-it-later.
No maybe-if-I-just-change-this-one-thing.
No maybe-if-I-just-try-a-little-harder.
No one-more-thing-first.
No this-can’t-be-happening (why?!).

No pretending temperatures aren’t cooler.
No denying the days are shorter.

When autumn shows up in an area of my life, I want to be willing and able to embrace the season without hesitation.

Even when it comes with loss and pain.
Knowing that I have winter to heal and rest.
Trusting that spring will come around again as it always does.

And I want my letting go to be as beautiful as that glorious, stunning tree.

• • • • •

So much of getting and staying out of overwhelm is about making peace with loss.

In order to say yes to what matters most, we have to say no to other things.

Sometimes that loss ends up being a huge relief.
Sometimes it represents a scary-yet-exciting transition.
Sometimes it comes with grief.
Sometimes loss includes all of the above.

Sometimes we are free to choose what to embrace and what to reject.

Sometimes life presents us with priorities we would not have chosen for ourselves. Yet we still must say yes to those realities in some way and no to other things in order to function within our capacity, to remain at least moderately balanced and whole.

Unfortunately, this letting go – this acceptance of autumn when it arrives – doesn’t come to us as easily as it does to that tree. Yet we can be inspired and learn from its example.

With practice, I like to think the release that is an unavoidable part of the cycle of life can become as natural for us as it is for that tree.

And though I’ve caught only glimpses of what it looks like for humans, those experiences have shown me that release can be just as beautiful as well.

I’m wondering if finding the beauty in loss – making it as glorious as we know how – is what makes it easier to let go…

• • • • •

Just because tasks are happening in the same place doesn’t mean they’re best done at the same time in the same way.

Email is a prime example.

All sorts of stuff ends up in our inboxes. Communications with customers, clients and colleagues Financial information. Newsletters subscriptions and announcements from service providers. Forum and blog comment notifications. Learning opportunities. Personal messages.

But what ends up on our to-do lists is usually a task vaguely labeled “email.” Maybe we get more specific and move beyond reminding ourselves not just to check it, but schedule time to actually process it. Maybe we label the task “inbox zero” with the idea of processing all of it.

But that’s still not specific enough. There’s just too much variety under the umbrella of “email.” Each kind of message needs its own approach.

They may share a location – your inbox – but they share little else.

The time of day, your environment, your mindset – how you go about processing a group of messages – will be different for different categories. Answering client questions is very different from bookkeeping or reviewing newsletters or replying to that note from your mom. They each require their own specific energy and approach.

What shows up on my to-do list or schedule is not “process email, ” but “bookkeeping” and bookkeeping includes the step of checking for and processing any financial information that’s in my inbox. Or another example – “answer client questions” – which includes the step of checking for and processing any related messages or notices I’ve received via email. See the difference?

• • • • •

Other examples of  same location/different approach that have come up recently in conversations with clients are…

Social media. You might be using Facebook to connect with friends and family, and promote your business, and have private conversations with clients. While it seem more efficient at first glance to do all those things at once – since you’re already there – again, these things are best handled in different ways.

Some areas are higher priority than others and each needs a different preparation and mindset. Chances are, your teaching, marketing and socializing modes aren’t the same – and you may not be able to shift quickly and smoothly between them. (If you’ve crashed and burned trying to do everything that happens to be in one place at the same time, this is why.)

Again, what ends up on your to-do list shouldn’t be “Facebook,”, but something more specific related to the type of work you need to do there. To continue with our previous example, a task like “answer client questions” would not only include the step of checking for and processing any related messages or notices, but also the step of hopping onto the appropriate area of Facebook to do the same.

What unifies a group of tasks is not where they are, but what they require you to do.

Projects. This same location/different approach problem doesn’t usually get us in trouble during large projects. In those instances, the different phases of the thing are more obvious. It’s the small projects where we tend to forget about it.

Preparing this newsletter is a good example of that. To note it on my calendar as “write and send newsletter” overlooks all the different elements of this small project, and that each of those elements require me to bring different skills and thinking to the forefront.

Writing this article is different from updating sales pages – and both of those things are very different from back-end tasks like updating my shopping cart or formatting the newsletter and uploading it to be mailed. Moving between more creative and technical/linear tasks requires conscious transitions [http://thirdhandworks.com/2010/01/transitions/] in order for this newsletter to come together in an efficient and effective way.

It’s not just a matter of grouping like tasks together, it’s giving yourself spaces between them to shift gears.

• • • • •

The next time you feel yourself losing momentum within a project or feeling overwhelmed by a task – ask yourself if you are getting bogged down by trying to do everything that happens to be in one location at the same time and in the same way.

How might grouping them differently, and giving yourself space for transitions, allow you to complete your work with greater ease?

• • • • •

Lately, I’ve been reminded of some fundamental truths about systems: the real pain they prevent and why we forget to use them anyway. I have some thoughts on that, along with some ideas about how to remember to use our tools despite ourselves, that I’d like to share.

the pain of disorganization

First, a basic lesson in the origin of systems.

We create systems to ensure that what is important to our businesses and lives is present or happens in a consistent way.

In other words, our systems support and are derived from our values.

Our values determine our standards and boundaries.
Our standards and boundaries determine our policies.
Our policies determine our procedures, how we do things, our systems.

So when we abandon our systems, we abandon our values.

This is why disorganization can feel so painful.

Yes, a lack of systems creates a lot of confusion and overwhelm that makes doing one’s job much more difficult than it needs to be. That’s painful enough.

But a lack of systems also makes it difficult to move through our days without embarrassment or apology; to keep our word; to be who we say we are; to be our best, most authentic selves. To be out of integrity is really painful.

so why do we do it?

Given the pain it causes, why would any of us abandon our systems?

I figure there are three main reasons we stop using a favorite organizational tool…

It gets squeezed out.
When we take on more than we have the capacity to do and push comes to shove, what we so often mistakenly pare from our schedules and to-do lists are the very structures that make it possible to be productive.

It has stopped working.
When a system is no longer creating the kind of results we want, it’s all too easy to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water – but chances are there were just elements of that system that needed a bit of tweaking.

We don’t think we need it anymore.
The only danger in getting our systems to the place where they are functioning smoothly in the background is how easy it is to forget just how much they are doing for us – until we stop using them.

Sometimes these dynamics work independently, sometimes in concert. For instance, we’re much more likely to drop a system from our to-do list if we don’t think we need it. Or if we’re pressed for time, we’re less likely to give attention to repairing a broken system.

we don’t it on purpose

It’s not like we wake up one day and say, “Today I’m going to abandon my systems!”

Something happens to interrupt our usual routine.
We skip an essential ritual once or twice.
We start trusting a little too much to memory.

We let one thing slip here and another slide there and before we know it, what was smooth and in the background is now bumpy and very much in the foreground. Ouch.

When we find ourselves in that place, it’s always tempting to beat ourselves up for being so foolish as to abandon our systems. After all, they were crafted to prevent this sort of chaos – and yet here we are (again).

One thing I know for sure: the slipping and sliding are inevitable – and an essential part of the process. The oscillation between too much and too little structure is the only way to keep finding those sweet spots that are just right. Systems are a Goldilocks thing.

The only question is this: how bumpy do things have to get before we notice we’ve swung too far into too little and do something to bring ourselves back to center?

early warning signs

Considering what’s at stake – upholding what is most important to us – it’s imperative that we have some way of becoming aware of the slipping and sliding before it becomes a problem.

Just as we use smoke detectors to protect our homes from fire, we need a way of alerting ourselves to the fact that something somewhere is not as it should be and needs our attention before it becomes dangerous.

The next time you’re in one of those bumpy spaces (maybe that’s right now), use the clarity of hindsight to look back and determine when the slipping and sliding first started. What were the small signs (small enough to ignore) at the very beginning that things were a bit off?

For instance, one of my early warning signs is ongoing confusion about the date or day of the week (or even month). Bad sign.

Another is making snarky, sarcastic notes in the margins of my to-do lists. Maniacal laughter – e.g., empty inbox (hahahahaha) – is definitely bad sign.

Another is giving in to telling little white lies, communicating with small exaggerations here and there, just to save face. A very worrisome sign.

These early warning signs might point to different problems on different occasions. Just as a smoke detector doesn’t tell you where the fire is or how to put it out, it’s not the job of my early warning system to identify and solve those problems. It’s just there to get my attention.

making it foolproof

Up to now, I’ve been scanning for my early warning signs during my Friday morning reviews. In addition to asking myself my usual series of questions about the past and coming weeks, I’ve added a checklist of early warning signs. If any are true, I take the time necessary to figure out what needs to be adjusted or brought back into balance.

But that hinges on me doing a Friday morning review. If I’m in that slippery place where I’m abandoning my systems, this weekly ritual could easily be one of the ones tossed aside.

I need something more foolproof. I don’t know if that’s as simple pinning a note to my bulletin board listing the Top Ten Signs Things Are About To Go To Hell so I can see it all the time (except it would need a less depressing title). Or maybe I use my calendar software to periodically remind me to take a pop quiz. Or maybe I just do more to make my weekly review an automatic, guaranteed thing. I don’t know.

What I do know is it’s worth experimenting with until I get it right. I need a solid, reliable system that keeps me from abandoning my systems – and so do you. It’s the most important system to have – because, again, there’s a lot at stake here.

When things start to slip and slide, sooner or later what slips away is our integrity. And that’s a pain none of us needs to bear.

• • • • •