A Remembering + Navigating Overwhelm

Hi Reader,

Sometimes I stay present, am highly intentional with my time and energy, have big audacity energy, and create a being-doing balance that I’m really proud of.

Other times I get frustrated when things don’t flow, start feeling “behind,” leave my mind to its own fear-based devices, and stay up until 1am watching TikToks about a guy 3D printing a village for frogs.

It’s easy to forget to be present.

Presence - reclaiming your now and really being here with yourself, your loved ones, and your life - is often referred to as a practice or an art. That’s exactly what it is.

Presence is not something to perfect.

It’s not something anyone has mastered. It’s not something you suddenly achieve and then never have to worry about again. And it is most definitely not like riding a bike.

Presence is a remembering in a world filled with constant distraction.

• Remembering who you are.
• Remembering what truly matters to you.
• Remembering to stay connected to yourself - mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
• Remembering your vision and what kind of life you want to live.

And, if you’re willing to step out from behind the veil of jaded normalcy for a moment…

I’ve been remembering that last one a lot more lately. It's added a soulful and deeply balancing perspective to the jaded normalcy of modern life.

As you can see, presence has so many layers. All of them come with practice.

Wherever you are in your presence journey - whether it’s finding pockets of time for yourself, creating more balance in your being and doing, or returning to who you are and your intentions for life itself - I invite you to release any notions of “achieving” it and instead embrace the process of it.

Just like life itself, presence is something to experience, not something to achieve.

Scroll below for this week’s Now Experiment, where I work through a wave of to-do list overwhelm.

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​[Smart Tech] Muse Meditation Headband - Technology can be a distraction, but what about when it's harnessed to help you stay present? I just learned of this smart headband that can detect when your mind wanders and gently nudge you back. Consider it officially added to my experimentation list.

​[Apps] 8 Best Digital Detox Apps - Every quarter, I do a 3-day digital detox. What works best for me is renting an Airbnb deep in nature, putting my phone in a box, and not touching any devices until I leave. Trust me when I say, it is deeply restorative. For those who want to start experimenting with a digi-detox, here's a list of helpful apps.

​[Great Read] The Power of Now - If you could glimpse the sheer volume of underlines and highlights in my copy of this book, you'd understand why I'm recommending it here. It is jam-packed full of presence-based learning. It leans spiritual, if that's your thing.

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This series provides real-life explorations in being more present, balancing your doing-being, and taking back your time, energy and audacity.

What's Present?

I started this week feeling like I might combust from all the many, many things to do. I usually feel pretty great about the balance of my doing and being, but this week I had a few work projects take way longer than I thought they would, and I'm gearing up for a heavy travel week as I visit Boston and then head on to Costa Rica.

Question / Hypothesis

How will I complete so many things in a short period of time, while also caring for myself? How can I release some of the weight of this overwhelm?

If I prioritize ruthlessly and give myself the rest/breaks I need, I'll have both the time and energy to get the things done well and feel more peace in the process.

Experiment 1: Sleep and Take Breaks

I know this sounds bonkers, but hear me out. By the time I fully realized my level of overwhelm, I was exhausted. I was irritably shuffling between smaller items on my to-do list, but couldn't focus enough to get anything over the finish line.

I realized that at my current level of energy, spending time on my to-do's was actually a total waste of time. Forcing it wasn't helping.

So, I headed to bed, and woke up the next day with way more energy and ability to be present with what I needed to do. This part worked well.

The part that didn't work so well was my lack of containment around the breaks I took throughout the day. I was taking them at helpful times (when I started to feel blocked or stuck in something), but I didn't set a container for them once they started.

This means my smoothie in the sunshine mysteriously expanded into an hour-long affair. This normally wouldn't be an issue, as I typically have lots of space for myself, but in a period of time-bound overwhelm, it wasn't ideal.

Next time I'm in a "sprint" of doing like this one, I'm setting a 30-minute container for my breaks (unless I feel like I need more).

Experiment 2: Ruthlessly Prioritize

Normally when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I gravitate towards the smaller, mindless to-do's on my list to feel productive.

Once I was rested, I had the energy to show up for anything, so I was able to instead create a prioritized list consisting of three buckets.

• Priority 1 - What needs to get done? What items have real deadlines that are the soonest? What will result in the biggest consequences if it doesn't get done well?
• Priority 2 - What would be great to get done? What has a self-imposed deadline that I'd really like to keep? What are the biggest needle-movers towards goals?
• Priority 3 - What would be good to get done? What doesn't fall in the first two categories?

For me, Priority 1 was packing and tying up loose travel ends (because that plane was leaving with or without me). I've gotta say, after I did this, I felt much more at ease.

This prioritization exercise helped me realize that a lot of what I "had to do" actually wasn't time-bound, and the world would not come crashing down if I took a little extra time with them.

I ended up ruthlessly slashing Priority 3 items until after my flight - the time when I consider this "sprint" of lots of doing complete and will go back to my normal doing-being balance.​

This was a liberating act of self-care to prioritize my well-being over the pressure of self-imposed and largely inconsequential urgency.

Results

While my two experiments helped A TON and everything that needed to get done, got done, being in this situation was avoidable and I'd like to minimize the need for sprints like these moving forward. To me, that means giving myself 2x the time I think I'll need to complete new projects from now on. Underestimating how long it'd take to do things I'd never done before is part of what got me in this pickle to begin with, even with all of my balanced doing-being tools in place. I'm happy to be back to my balanced, overwhelm-free baseline.

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