Let’s start here. Overwhelm is a huge thing that Managers experience, because you are ultimately responsible for your car wash operations. Who will do all the things if not you?
We all feel this way sometimes, but there are ways to combat overwhelm that WORK. One of the easiest is to narrow down your to-do list. Seem impossible? Watch the incredible Mel Robbins talk about how.
In terms of your writing life, the book is the most important thing you can be working on. Whether you are outlining, writing, revising, or editing it, these things are top priorities. They are #1 for you that day.
Understand that the better you train your brain, the more you should be able to rely on yourself not to do the busywork. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t answer an email from your agent or make a quick Pinterest board of what your character looks like if it is needful. What it means is that you don’t always have to personally do everything that comes up the moment it arrives in your life.
Make a list of things that can absolutely get done later, or by others. The only thing you HAVE to do involves working on the book. Other than that? Let yourself worry about the rest later. Do you, personally, have to send that email that you’ve sent a thousand times before linking to a question that’s already been answered on your blog? No. Make yourself a template of any emails you send regularly, and either do them all at once as a “task” or give them to someone else to do, like a Virtual Assistant.
Are there things in your brain dump that you’d like to do but aren’t top priority? That might wait another day with no adverse effect on your operations? If you can get to them, do it after your big, most important tasks. These projects–like reorganizing your desk drawers, shopping for a new rug or keyboard or whiteboard, and cleaning out your printer–are secondary tasks that will not make or break you, so if you can get to them, great, but if not, don’t sweat it. Keep them on your list, but cross them off on another day.
