Overwhelm as a Warning Sign

“Overwhelm is a sign of misaligned priorities.” was what I tweeted a while back.

Especially if you fail to say no, delegate tasks or have an inability to postpone certain tasks if need be. This reminds me a lot of Steven Covey’s First Things First (if you constantly find yourself putting out fires, something’s terribly wrong) and David Allen’s Getting Things Done (the importance of being able to immediately categorize incoming tasks and file them away somewhere if it doesn’t need to be handled immediately).

Getting myself organized and getting things done are two of the key skills that I constantly need to learn and improve upon. I really loved how David described that it’s like going to a dojo everyday, where constant ritual practice is crucial to master the chops and art.

And yes, I do find myself in a mess more often than I liked. And it’s OK, when it happens, it’s time to clear out everything and tweak my strategies. Till the day of mastery, “wax on, wax off”.