45. Are You Doing Too Much?
Episode 45
Doing a million things is not a badge of honor. In fact, it’s really a sign of poor time and task management.
Learn the 5 signs that reveal if you are doing too much, and 3 solutions that can solve the problem.
🎙️Other Episodes + Resources Mentioned
Episode 03 → What’s an Admin Block and Why You Need One
Episode 04 → What to Do When You’re Overwhelmed
Episode 06 → January Q&A: Focus Tips and Job Skills
Episode 8 → Motivation vs. Discipline: Which One Matters More?
Episode 12 → Are Your Productivity Systems Broken?
Episode 21 → How to Plan Your Ideal Week (Weekly Planning Tips)
Episode 27 → How to Get Things Done with a Power Hour
Episode 43 → How to Focus When You’re Working From Home
✏️ FREE DOWNLOADS:
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them 😉
45 Are You Doing Too Much?===
[00:00:00] Hello, you are listening to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. This is episode 45. And if it's your first time listening, or maybe you are watching on YouTube, I am so happy you're here.
If you are a return listener or return watcher, welcome back, and I hope that means that you have been enjoying the content. I sure as heck am having so much fun creating these podcast episodes each week and seeing where this journey leads me.
And it's hard to believe that we are going to be coming up on the first year anniversary pretty soon. My first podcast came out on January 4th, 2024.
Today's episode is relevant to both students and professionals because we are talking about the idea of doing too much.
Doing too much is not the same as being busy or having multiple interests.
It's actually exactly what it sounds like: doing too much.
Because it's important to remember that as we go through the strategies today, everybody's idea of what's too much is different. Right. So you might be involved in maybe three things and it's too much for [00:01:00] you according to the signs that we're going to talk about today. The next person might be involved in nine things and is just fine.
There are a multitude of factors that make this true, including our own individual frustration tolerance, how much support where we receive from other people. And then also our own beliefs about time and how we should be spending it.
Another important thing that I want you to consider before we get to the tips today is that sometimes doing too much is a mathematical equation and it doesn't involve feelings and frustration tolerance and all of those other factors that I just mentioned. Sometimes it really is very black and white. We have a certain amount of time in our day. And we have committed to a certain amount of activities and tasks that consume a certain amount of time that is greater than the amount of time we have available in our day. Right.
Even if you like all of the activities and you like the idea of being involved in them and they are important to you, sometimes the limiting factor is [00:02:00] time. Because we all know that if time is on one side of the math equation and activities are on the other side, the only thing that we can do to balance that equation is subtract activities because we cannot add more time. Right.
And I think that we are ready to get into the episode now.
So we are going to start with how to recognize whether you're doing too much in the first place. And then we are going to move into some tips that will help you address that.
Now, I don't know what it is, but someone put this bizarre memo out into the world that doing a ton of things is heroic. This is a bunch of [00:03:00] nonsense. And I feel like it's an idea that has been ingrained in many of us, particularly in the Western culture, since we were very young.
Students are often told that they need to, you know, do a ton of activities in order to create superior transcripts for college applications. Right? First of all, definitely false. More does not equal more in the eyes of college administration officers. I know that because I've been doing college applications for almost 20 years.
Okay. And similarly for working professionals, there's a common misconception that we need to do everything to prove our worth or to advance our careers.
But the reality is that taking on too much can lead to burnout.
We actually talked about that. Uh, burnout in the episode before this one episode 44.
Alright, it can lead to poor performance. And of course it can affect our health.
Whether you are juggling extracurricular activities, side projects, work tasks, family responsibilities, chronic stress is no joke. It messes with our sleep, which means [00:04:00] that messes with all of our body systems. It increases our cortisol level, lowers our confidence, and it can worsen anxiety or depression or any other preexisting mental health issue that we had going on before we started doing too much.
Furthermore, taking on too many activities, whether they're a school or work-related or otherwise, maybe even just in your personal life, can lead to poor performance across the board.
If you clicked on the title of this episode and you are listening or watching right now, something about this topic resonated. Perhaps you already know deep down that you are over-committed and you need someone's permission to stop.
If so, consider this your permission. So let's talk about the five telltale signs that you are doing too much, whether you are a student or professional and what you can do about it.
Sign number one is you rarely go to bed feeling done for the day.
Now for both students and professionals going to bed, feeling like you haven't finished, your work is a clear sign that you're doing too much. If you find that most [00:05:00] nights, you still have tasks on your mind, or you feel like you're stuck on a treadmill, it is time to reassess.
Yes, some days are absolutely going to be busier than others. And naturally, they're going to be days when you just run out of time to do all of the things. But this should not be the norm. Most nights we should be going to bed feeling done-ish. All right. Done in the sense that you couldn't literally put a checkmark next to most of your to-do list items for the day.
Students, you might not be completing assignments in time, or you're lying in bed thinking "oh, no, like, did I do that thing? Did I submit that assignment? I, I wish I had more time to study for that test."
And professionals, you might be staying up late responding to emails or thinking about tomorrow's meetings. You might be thinking, "oh, I haven't even started that thing yet. And I really should." And maybe you're mentally running through your calendar and thinking to yourself, "Wait, I have X, Y, and Z tomorrow. Like, how am I going to work on this if I have X, Y, and Z going on?"
All right. Helpful tips for both groups if you're having trouble falling asleep at night, because you can't shut off your brain it's [00:06:00] to try to do a brain dump before bed. You could also keep a pad of paper next to your bed. I personally do this and if my brain so kindly serves me any worries or thoughts or ideas as I'm trying to sleep, I write it down.
All right. Sign number two that you were doing too much. He said you're always behind or barely on time to complete your work.
Students, if you are always submitting assignments at the last minute or barely making deadlines, this is a big red flag.
Professionals, if you are constantly rushing to finish projects are responding to urgent work requests, right?
And you may also be over-committing.
An occasional crunch time is absolutely expected and so normal, whether it's, you know, from taking multiple classes all at one time and they all have like over, you know, lapping tests that all happen to all be on Friday, or if maybe at the office, you have overlapping work projects because your company is in this like big initiative right now.
Right? That happens. But that's just situational overload. It happens and we deal with it. And then it's over.
But if you are constantly behind it to sign that we need [00:07:00] to reevaluate our workload. Now, a part of this idea of always being behind or barely on time is when we're somehow managing to complete our assignments and our work, but all of our administration tasks are being neglected. We talk a lot about this and learn the learn and work smarter podcast.
And in episode three, I talk all about using an admin block for productivity. In that episode, we talk about how admin tasks or all of the, sort of like supplementary and supportive, like custodial tasks that we need to do to operate smoothly in school and work. They include things like tidying our space, organizing our digital files, filing things, and replying to emails. Right? It could include keeping our school materials in order, handling the piles of paper accumulating in our space, it could include replying to people making phone calls, managing our calendar. All of the sort of smaller sub-tasks that have to be in place in order for everything else to run smoothly.
That's an admin task. And when we're [00:08:00] doing too much and are struggling to barely complete our actual work, it's these admin tasks that are often, you know, neglected and take a back seat.
But as I said, when we don't do these admin tasks, they accumulate and we become more overwhelmed in the end. So if you have a stack of papers on your desk or an overflowing email inbox, or maybe a whole list of people that you need to get back to and a million things to file, you're doing too much. Sign number three, you're doing too much.
Don't forget. There are tips at the end of this. Okay. So if you're like, oh my gosh, this is me, we're going to get to the tips.
Sign number three is that you're starting to forget things.
Forgetfulness is another common sign of being overextended.
So if you're suddenly finding yourself forgetting more than usual, you might be over-committed. I know I'm talking about forgetting things that we have no reason to be forgetting. Like basic homework assignments, tests, and important dates out of outside of school. Okay. Like work or appointments. Professionals, maybe you're forgetting meetings, project details, or even personal [00:09:00] commitments outside of work.
I'm not talking about like walking into a room and forgetting what you were doing in the room. Like. We all do that. We all do that. I'm talking about forgetting things that are your job to not forget.
When stress is high, our brains get flooded with stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline and norepinephrine, and all of those affect our memory negatively. So when we are stressed, we literally can't remember things because our brain is putting all of its resources into managing this urgent fight-or-flight state it's in. No good. All right.
The fourth sign is that our work quality is tanking.
When we're overextended and involved in too many things or have too much on our plate, the quality of what we do manage to produce goes down. There's a little bit of math, I'd say involved here too. Cause if you think about it, the total of anything can only add up to a hundred percent.
Right? So if we're dividing that hundred percent by more and more and more things, Then [00:10:00] the amount of attention and effort we can give to each one of those things become smaller. That's just principles of basic division.
So if you're a student and you typically do well on tests because you follow the study techniques, I teach here and in SchoolHabits and SchoolHabits University, but your, your test grades are suddenly starting to dip then it's probably because you simply don't have enough time or brain space to study like you used to. This means you're doing too much.
At the office, if you're not as prepared for meetings as you usually are, or your reports are done but they're like hastily done and they're like total junk, then you're probably doing too much.
In the beginning stages, this lower quality might only be perceptible to us. We know what our typical personal standard is. And when we don't meet that personal standard, we're the first to know it before anybody else was knows what's going on. And, and sometimes this is fine and it's just what we have to do to survive sort of like a temporary season.
Right. But if other people are starting to notice changes in your [00:11:00] output quality, that is no good. The quality of our work doesn't just tank for no reason. There is always a reason. And if other people are starting to notice it in multiple contexts, that reason is that our resources are being stretched too thin. Again, you may only have a few things going on, but that's too much for you. Your colleague or classmate might have way more going on and be involved in so much more than you, but be able to manage it just fine.
Remember: what's too much for us is subjective. That's why nowhere in this episode, am I saying that okay, well, once you reach five commitments, you're overextended. There's no prescription here. There's no way to quantify when we're doing too much, that's why we have to look for the signs and assess for ourselves. Okay.
The fifth and final sign you probably have too much going on is that you have too many actual calendar conflicts. So this comes down to what I was saying at the [00:12:00] top of the episode about how sometimes we're mathematically doing too much. Right. The math doesn't math.
I like to say that if we're double booking ourselves at least twice a month, it's a clear sign that we're doing too much.
Students, maybe your, you know, club meetings are regularly over overlapping with sports practices. So for example, do you always have practice on Tuesdays at three o'clock, but then you're also supposed to volunteer twice a month on Tuesdays at three o'clock? You're doing too much. Professionals, you might be scheduling work meetings over personal appointments or social events. Maybe every Wednesday, you're supposed to be at a job site somewhere, all day. It's part of your job, but that's also when you have office hours with your team back at the office. Like mathematically, that's just, that's a no. Right.
Whether you are a student or you're a professional using a calendar is essential. That's cause we need to make time visible in order to manage it.
Right. And you know that we have to see time in order to know that it is double booked because we can't [00:13:00] manage what we can't see. And if you are seeing more than two conflicts a month, it's time to make some changes.
All right. So we have identified that you are indeed doing too much. And you want things to be different. So, what do we do?
Awesome question. So glad you asked it.
There are essentially three options.
And I'm going to walk you through each of them.
Remember, you can get a full transcript of this episode, including all of the tips we're covering and the resources I'm mentioning at learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/45. This is episode 45. So the URL ends in 45. See how that works. He. The first option. Okay. So, like I said, you have three options.
The first option is obvious, do less. All right. Whether you are a student or a working professional, sometimes we really do have to do less.
Here's the process- I'm not just going to like, give you that and walk away; I'm going to show you how to figure that out- here's the process for figuring out how to know what to cut and what to keep and starting with students.
And then I'll walk through that process, [00:14:00] which is similar, for professionals. Number one, write a list of all your commitments other than homework. This might be annoying. This might take you a few minutes. Doesn't matter. Do it anyway. The cross off your top two things on your list, the two commitments that bring you the most joy and which are the most non-negotiable. All right.
So if you're in college and you play a sport, that's probably going to be one of them. All right. If you are in high school and you are in the theater production company. And that is something that you intend to do when you get to college, you're going to keep that one. Okay. But we're talking all the activities, jobs. The volunteering, everything, family obligations.
All right.
You identify the two that are non-negotiable. You are going to keep doing those. Look at the rest. Move slowly down the list, noting which one stress you out the most, which ones are giving you a pit in your stomach. Cut that from your commitments. Yeah, it might hurt. Oh, well.
Professionals. You essentially follow the same process. [00:15:00] You write a list of all your commitments other than your actual non-negotiable job responsibilities.
And then you would prioritize the tasks or the projects that are the most critical and fulfilling- the non-negotiables. And then look at what's left and consider where you can scale back or say no. Which items on the list, like again, give you that pit in the stomach? Pits in our stomach means something.
And we ignore it all the time. Let's not do that anymore. This might be painful or it might actually give you relief. That emotional response can vary in people.
Alright, so that was strategy number one. You can either do less.
Strategy number two is you can give less. If you absolutely cannot remove any commitments from your schedule, then we got to look at the list that you created above- you're still going to make that list- and pick one to three activities that you can give less to. In other words, Identify activities and you can cut back on. Not cut out completely. All right. If you're committed to the idea that I have to do these. Okay. But what can you give less [00:16:00] time to, or give less emotional energy to. Mathematically, you cannot give a hundred percent to more than one thing.
So think about which commitments you can give less to. Give less of yourself to while still technically doing them.
For example. Students, maybe you don't need to be the president of a club, but you can still be a member of it and go to most of the meetings. Not all of them.
Professionals, maybe you can step back from leading every project you're asked to manage, and maybe you can take on a more supportive role occasionally instead. If you worry about how this scaling back would make you look professionally.
I think you're asking the wrong question. I think the question that you should be asking is how does it make me look professionally if I'm so overbooked that I'm not leading the project? Well, what if I'm dropping the ball? How does that make me look?
All right. And our third option: be ruthless with time management.
If you're feeling overwhelmed and are experiencing more than one sign that you're doing too much, and you have [00:17:00] already cut when you can from your schedule, then it is time to be ruthless with your time management skills, which honestly I hope you're doing anyway.
Students and professionals use your calendar religiously.
Don't have one? Set it up. You can't afford not to. Calendar block most of your days, including time for breakfast, personal activities and rest. This is how you make sure that you're being intentional about where your time is going. It's also how you make sure that you're protecting time for yourself, whether it's hobbies, families, relaxation. I'm going to give you a few episodes that address exactly how to lock in your time management.
And I want you to listen to those or watch them if you're on YouTube. If you don't have time to listen or watch now, then take a screenshot of the show notes, write them on your hand, mark them somewhere. Here we go. Episode 13 is a Q and a episode where I answer a listener's questions all about work overload.
And in my answer, we talk about how to assess a time management system.
Episode 25. I covered five common [00:18:00] time management mistakes you might be making that are sabotaging your efforts here.
All right. Episode 21 is how to plan your ideal week. This is the only way to know if you are mathematically doing too much. Okay.
We're not estimating. We're not guessing. We are making time visible. And we are doing the math.
Episode is 18 is how to use the batching strategy to work smarter. I love that. I'm using it right now. I'm recording multiple podcasts at once.
And episode five is how to set up an ideal task management system.
Why am I directing you to an episode about task management? Because when we are talking about doing too much and not having enough time to do all of the things we need to be darn sure that we have absolute clarity about what those things are. We need one source of truth system that we pull tasks from and we plop them into our calendar.
And if they don't fit, something has to give. If they do fit, then the true issue might be procrastination. Or lack of focus. And if that's the case, you can go [00:19:00] listen to, or watch any of my numerous episodes and videos about procrastination both here and on my SchoolHabits channel. I have approximately 1 million or so pieces of content about that topic for sure.
Hold up: before we wrap up, let's do a quick recap of the five signs and the three strategies, right?
Because repetition is the key to learning, so that makes sense here.
The five signs you're doing too much.
Number one: you rarely go to bed feeling done for the day. And this is like a consistent pattern, right?
Number two: you're late or barely on time for submitting assignments and work.
Three: you're forgetting things that we have no business forgetting.
Four: work quality is tanking.
Five: you have multiple calendar conflicts a month, at least two.
And then the three options really at the end of the day, your only three options for how to handle this situation.
Number one, do less.
Number two, give less.
And number three, get ruthless with your time management.
And that brings us to the end of the [00:20:00] episode. I hope you find these tips helpful, but remember the magic is in the action.
So let's go put some of these tips into implementation, shall we? I appreciate you. Thank you for being here. And never stop learning.
