How To Stay Sane When Life's Hectic But You Want To Do It All

Accept that time, energy, and attention are finite. You’ll never do it all. Instead, focus on what truly matters right now and for your legacy.

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

People who say you can have it all are lying to you. You can have some of it, but there are always limits. Beyond those limits are postponed consequences and unpaid life debts.

I’ve grappled with balancing work and life for years. Growing up, I didn’t see it modelled well. I learned early that self-sacrifice was a virtue and boundaries were optional. You stay quiet for the greater good and keep pushing forward. Now, decades later, I’m deprogramming those unhealthy lessons.

Staying aware of autopilot urges helps nip them in the bud. This awareness takes effort, which is why change is difficult.

Our brains and bodies prefer efficiency, so anything that disrupts that comfort zone often meets resistance.

But if you want a life well lived - free from burnout or chronic stress - you must make some tough, vital choices. You need to show your conscious and unconscious mind that a different, healthier life is possible.

To assist in this journey, I’ve drawn from my experiences and insights from Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals and Harry Kraemer’s Your 168.

Both books highlight the importance of prioritising what you value and accepting the limits of your resources.

Embrace your limitations to protect precious brain resources

Burkeman’s seminal book, Four Thousand Weeks - Time And How To Use It, reminds us the average lifespan is about 4,000 weeks (if you live to 80). In Meditations For Mortals, he re-emphasises recognising life’s finitude radically changes how we use our time.

Modern life tricks us into believing we have endless hours available, yet we often feel overwhelmed. Time goes on and on, but we won’t.

The clutter of our dreams and obligations makes it harder to make decisions, so we end up frittering this precious time on less important things.

When burnt out, even choosing cheese at the supermarket can feel monumental. This decision fatigue stems from all the conflicting information we simultaneously hold about cheese! (PS it's not only cheese this applies to!).

In uncertain and mentally overloaded environments, your poor exhausted neurocognitive circuits struggle to function.

The antidote? Reduce the number of decisions you make. Accepting your resources are finite relieves some pressure. You can’t do everything, so restore your brain and body systems to fight another day.

Action Steps:

1. Conduct a "limitation audit." List your limitations in mind, body, emotions, environment, time, and relationships.

2. Identify unnecessary decisions - like those about cheese - and ditch them, focusing on what truly matters.

3. For example, relationship limitations might be social exhaustion, so prioritise social commitments energising you and let go of the draining ones. Repeat for the other areas.

4. Create a “not important right now” pile for anything feeling off so its recognised, then put aside.

Prioritise with purpose to focus on what really matters

Kraemer emphasises the importance of core values in determining what matters in his book Your 168 (based on the number of hours in a week).

These core values shape your actions, decisions, and goals. In my practice, I guide clients through an ‘ideal life’ visualisation to uncover their core values and non-negotiables in life.

Over the years, the common ones include family, freedom, autonomy, achievement, and financial stability. Identifying what angers you also reveals your core values. You might discover more social and moral-related values this way, for example, justice, respect, or honesty.

Knowing your core values helps you navigate choices when time feels tight. They help you adjust the ‘sails on your ship’ in response to external or internal motivations. If you only have 168 hours to use, shift decision-making and prioritisation using your core values.  

When you align tasks with meaningful goals, your brain’s reward (dopaminergic) system primes you to take action for the payoff (release of internal ‘feel-good’ endocannabinoids). But when effort doesn’t match reward, you feel dissatisfied.

If you feel icky after wasting time doom scrolling - this is why. Clever tech apps right - keep hunting for the reward you eventually do like…

Shift your focus and spend time and effort on what WILL offer meaningful rewards in the various life buckets you have (e.g. health, work, family, hobbies, etc). Retrain your motivation and reward system to prioritise these activities over less important ones.

This’ll help you power you through the mundane and (frankly) boring stuff too. We all have to do unsexy tasks. Knowing you have other, better things to do with your time helps you grit when you need to grit, and quit when you need to quit.

Action Steps:

1. Conduct a "priority alignment." Review your past week’s schedule to highlight values misalignments across areas like health and family.

2. Use a life bucket and goals table (see below for ideas) to track how you spend your time against your core values goals.

   

   Life Buckets, Goal Hours And Actual Hours Spent On These Goals Table From Your 168 by Harry Kraemer

3. Schedule non-negotiables into your upcoming week to protect what matters when things get hectic.

Choose progress over perfection and reset what ‘good enough’ means to you

As a recovering perfectionist, I know this burnout pattern well. My fears of unworthiness, not being lovable or social rejection drove me to overwork, especially in a toxic work environment.

Last year, I ended up doing long hours in my day job to counteract a toxic working relationship. I beavered away hoping to prove myself, only to realise it was never enough for the colleagues in question.

Once I acknowledged my unhealthy reactions to criticism, I began asserting boundaries with MYSELF and others. This is what no-one really talks about with perfectionism.

We find it hard to ‘say no’ to ourselves and give in to the underlying fears we’re trying to avoid. If only we realised we're resilient enough to deal with the consequences if they happen.

Burkeman frequently talks about letting go of perfectionism and embracing imperfect action. Seek decisions and make them actively – choose progress over perfection.

Without challenging this notion, reality becomes distant and burnout takes a seat in your favourite chair.

Without perfectionist strivings draining and whipping you into never-ending work, you release the mental load on your brain, working memory, and stress functioning.

Step back and accept when a task is good enough, or you won’t get to the meaningful actions in your life. You’ll always feel lacking, disengage, and go into autopilot mode.

Action Steps:

1. Create a "good enough" checklist. List tasks you obsess over and prioritise them ruthlessly. Get help if you struggle to do it yourself.

2. For each task, identify what "good enough" looks like and aim for that standard.

3. Keep your 80%, ‘good enough’ target in mind on your weekly schedule to avoid overcommitting.

4. Remember, done is better than perfect - do enough and move onto meaningful tasks.

Reflect and build self-awareness so you don’t slide into unhelpful habits

Self-reflection and journalling practices are often dismissed as “woo-woo,” or a privilege. But it’s essential to know how you spend your time, make choices, and feel about them.

You don’t need an Instagram-perfect bullet journal for this. Discover your preferences to reflect and record notes. Use audio or art-journalling or another approach for reflections on your day (or ‘daily-ish’ as Burkeman says) or week.

I see journalling as the car dashboard of useful signals for how your car is working:

• Is the signal light on?

• What’s the speedometer saying?

• What gear are you in?

• Does the oil need changing?

• Are you ready for a service?

We accept this feedback all the time for devices we use and own. Why wouldn’t we do so for ourselves? It maketh no sense.

Brain-wise, self-reflection activates the brain’s default mode network (DMN), a network of interconnected regions across the brain involved in self-referential experiences, autobiographical assessments, creative problem solving, and emotional regulation.

Self-reflection activates your brain’s DMN, enhancing creativity and decision-making. It allows you to learn from your healthier experiences (not just the threat-focused ones), celebrate the wins, and cultivate a discovery mindset.

If you can’t allocate an hour a day at 5am like the hustle bros, don’t despair. Find pockets of time to reflect, and adjust what you want to change.

Action steps:

1. Identify times for self-reflection during your day - whether through writing, audio, or art etc.

2. Ask yourself these questions as a starting points:

   1. What went well today/this week?

   2. What could I have done differently today/this week?

   3. What do I want to experiment with next?

   4. Who or what can help me do this?

   5. What will I gain when I try this new action?

3. Monthly or quarterly, review your self-reflections for patterns and areas to keep or adapt.

Key takeaways

Our modern lives tell us the default is hectic, overwhelmed, overstretched, and overburdened. This doesn’t have to be your default though. It comes at a cost and the payment will come due one way or another – if not for yourself, but for the people around you.

Pick one of the strategies I’ve shared, experiment and see how it works.  Here’s a reminder:

1. Embrace your limitations – time, energy and attention are finite. Use them wisely.

2. Prioritise with purpose – use your core values to decide what’s important and protected.

3. Let go of perfection – give yourself and your diary a break. Done is better than perfect.

4. Self-reflect and adjust – learn what’s working and what isn’t. Adapt in real time.

It feels frustrating at first, asserting boundaries on yourself. We often chase the illusion of having it all, but question whether this is logical or not.

Reassess what is important and matters to YOU. Choose where and how you’ll apply your finite time, energy and attention on the activities and people who mean the most. This’ll help you power through tougher tasks and experiences too.  

Find time for reflection so you surf through life’s challenges when needed. If a strategy isn’t working, pivot and shift quickly to save time and your health in the long run.

That’s a sign of a stress resilient and meaningful life well-lived if ever there was one.

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PS: If you’re ready to move beyond burnout, prioritise what’s important, and benefit from creative healing, join me for my first free and live Quarterly Masterclass: 

Face It To Make It: Art-Based Action Board Masterclass - October 2024 

Date: Friday October 11 2024

Time: 9pm BST / 4pm EDT / 1pm PDT / 3pm CDT / 7am (next day) AEDT

Duration: 60 Minutes

I’ll share Zoom and prep details shortly, but pop this into your diary now.

I’m super excited (and bl00dy nervous) to launch this first Masterclass! Let’s tap into your inner creativity to restore calm, clarity, and peak performance together.