From overwhelm.

"Drinking from a firehose is a really bad way to get hydration."

~ Seth Godin on overwhelm, The Tim Ferriss Show

If you're feeling overwhelmed, this might help.

Start by making a numbered list of the things in front of you. Are these projects, decisions or tasks? Can you separate them?

For the tasks, write down an estimate of how much time it would take, and then double it. Tasks usually take more time than we think they might, and sometimes they take less, but having a cushion helps.

For the decisions, give yourself space to write down the different alternatives in front of you and the potential outcomes. Annie Duke teaches us that a good outcome may come from a bad decision, and vice versa. Everything gets better when we make better decisions.

For the projects, start by writing down how many are there.

For each, check if it has a starting point and an end point. If not, it might not be a project. It might be an idea, a system (maybe working, maybe broken), a chore or a situation.

Now, for each project, write down the decisions that you need to make. The first one might be: is this project a go or a no-go? And then, if it's a go, what are the ship dates?

Now write down all the people who need to be involved in this project. Is there someone whose inputs are needed? Someone whose permission is needed?

When you have that clarity, ask what it would look like if the project were done. What all needs to happen to get there? Make a numbered list again for those tasks.

Once you know how many projects you are working on and what they look like when they are done, you can start working on shipping them.

Keeping it all in your head is what causes the overwhelm.