The Soulful Way to Get More Done and Avoid Overwhelm – 4 Simple Practices

The Soulful Way to Get More Done and Avoid Overwhelm – 4 Simple Practices

Get more done & avoid overwhelm

Do you ever feel like you’re drowning in your to do list even after you’ve worked a 16 hour day?

Are you overwhelmed by all your projects, visionary ideas and general things you need to get done in a day?

If your answer is yes… I hear you, me too!

At first, I had the “I can do it all” attitude. Especially after my business took off and started to gain traction. But then I crashed and that’s when I started searched for a new way.

Since then, I’ve invested thousands of dollars and tried various techniques and practices to help me get more done and avoid the general overwhelm I experience as an entrepreneur.

But truthfully, a lot of the practices were too rigid for me and even though I did experience more productivity with some of them I didn’t feel authentic about it.

Actually, they made me feel like a robot.

But then I learned about a concept called “agile development” and a few other practices that I discovered by following my heart and now I feel like a superhuman.

QUOTES

Here are 4 simple practices to help you get more done and avoid overwhelm

1. Start your mornings with self love, not email

Starting your day with email is the fastest path to being the least productive. It’s like opening your computer and firing up a whole bunch of windows and then expecting it to work efficiently.

A similar thing happens with your consciousness when you start your day with your email, because if you don’t get to the emails right away then they are like open files running in your consciousness all day. The unanswered emails slows down your productivity reducing your ability to focus, because human beings naturally don’t like to leave things unfinished. It’s no wonder we’re all feeling so overwhelmed.

Instead, create a self care practice to start your day that leaves you feeling rejuvenated. Even if it means waking up at 4am before the kids. If you’re thinking “no way I’m not a morning person,” I hear you, I wasn’t a morning person either, but once I got into the habit and saw the benefits, there was no turning back. It will be worth it, you’ll see.

Establish a practice around doing something for yourself that opens your heart, fuels your body and inspires your spirit. Personally, I start my day with my spiritual practice followed by a superhuman smoothie.

follow_twitter_on Start your morning with self love (not email)

(Psst… Leave a comment below and I’ll share the recipe with you)

2. Spend the first part of your day working ON your business

Now that you’re feeling inspired, aligned and grounded with your self love practice why not channel that powerful energy into the most profitable and strategically important work you do in a day. Spend the first 90 minutes to 4 hours working ON your business versus in it. If you’re wondering, yes this still means no email. Start your day by designing new products, creating marketing content, learning and strategizing.

This way you will start your day feeling creative and inspired about your work because you are operating from your highest self while you do the most important work you do in a day.

When you design your day this way, it’s flying in the jet stream, everything else will start to feel faster and effortless.

Whatever you do, leave the least valuable tasks to the later part of your day.

3. Up your self-love dosage with mini breaks

As a spiritual entrepreneur on the path, I often find myself getting wrapped up in the hustle of the day. I have a deep desire to stay grounded in presence, which can be challenging when you have deadlines, expectations and deliverables to get out.

I started to take mini breaks that are only 5 minutes where I go into a room and shut the door. I don’t take my mobile or any technology into the room, I lock the door and turn off the light and I take a moment to just be, pray and remember.

Whatever spiritual practice you do the important thing here is to take a moment and just be still. Reconnect back into that self love practice you started your day with to tap back into the energy you started your morning with.

I find that if you only practice self love once a day by the end of it you’re feeling low on the good juju. That’s why I upped the dosage.

#bringlovetobusiness

4. Simplify your to-do list

As an entrepreneur you’re probably full of all kinds ideas about how to grow your business. It’s possible you have big long to do list or even several lists that include multiple projects, initiatives and possibly even new businesses that you’re passionate about.

However, all of these projects absorb energy and fill up your consciousness too. In other words, the more you have on your to do list the more your mind is congested with multiple things to think about.

While those ideas very well could be the next big thing in your business, they are also creating a deficit in energy that you could otherwise be optimizing.

A few years ago, I learned about agile development from a technology expert I hired to help out with our website. He forced me to only develop new features for our technology platform that we could deliver in a week and ever since then I have been applying that methodology to my to do list and have been getting a lot more done.

I threw away my big long to do list with all my pet projects, and now do only what I can get done in one week. I also focus on what my business needs me to do to move it forward, rather than what I want to spend my time doing. This way, I feel like every week I’m delivering value to my business.

Every Monday I decide three things I will get done in that week that will move my business forward.

One last thing…

If you were only to take one thing away from this article, it would be to follow your heart. While these simple practices to get more done and avoid overwhelm have worked for me and made me feel like superwoman some days, you know yourself best so always follow the wisdom within you.

Now, over to you.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, what’s your self care practice? What are you working on this week? What soulful practices have you tried to get more done and feel less overwhelmed?

Comments

  1. Heather

    Great post! Follow your heart to the unique path that is perfect for YOU. I start my day in nature followed by exercise. My business is me, and the better I take care of me, the better my business runs. Thanks for this mindful post.

  2. Stefanie

    What a great idea to work the first 90 minutes ON the business, love that!
    I start my day with a green smoothie, on weekends also with 10 minutes of breathing exercises and concentration on what I’m grateful for, the energy I have, and finally on my current 3 goals.
    Some time ago, I read a suggestion at Tim Ferriss’ blog about a different approach in your to do list:
    1) take a sheet of paper and draw a horizontal line in the middle.
    2) In the upper part, you write down your most important goal for the day. The lower part is for other things you want to achieve that day but which are less important.
    3) So in the lower part, you draw again a horizontal line in the middle.
    4) In the upper part, you draw a vertical line, so that you have two parts, thus place for two tasks with priority 2.
    5) In the lowest part, you now draw two vertical lines, so that you have three parts, thus place for two tasks with priority 3.
    I have been applying this method for several months now, and I like it because you easily see which goal/task has the biggest impact.

  3. José

    Great advice, I usually have a hard time getting all my ideas in order. I heard that multitasking was about doing a lot of stuff at the same time and feeling happy every time for the thing you got to do. But this is not true.

    It is better to stay focused in one thing at a time and by the end of the day fell happy for all that you acomplished.

    Thanks for the tips

  4. Sandra

    Have heard tip #2 a lot, but find that in PR when communicating with media is necessary during the day, I leave working on the business to afternoons. Great tips!