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Stepping Away From Overwhelmed

What kinds of things overwhelm you? As writers, the demands of life encroach on our time. Many writers work full time jobs, run households, volunteer to help other writers, schedule speaking engagements and yet seem to have time not only to complete verbal works of art, but get them published. How do they do it?

If you’ve lost the joy of writing and find yourself mired in a mess of self-imposed projects with little energy left to actually write, I’ve got good news for you. You can step away from overwhelmed. This article takes a look at steps to move you away from being snowed under and puts your muse on the path to the creative pleasure you once enjoyed.

Narrowing Your Focus – Recognizing Your Target

Imagine putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The box shows the image and indicates the number of pieces. After you dump all those pieces on the table, what do you do next? I pick out the end pieces, especially watching for the four corners. I put together the frame first. I’ll attach inner pieces depicting tidbits of clear detail if I come upon them, but I don’t try to fit together the less defined pieces until the framework is in place.

It’s no different juggling your schedule as a writer. You need a general plan. If you’re feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, sit down and write out your answers to the prompts below.

What do I want to write? (List your projects and/or ideas.)
What are my strengths and weaknesses?
What’s keeping me from writing?
What steps can I take to reach my dream?

Thoughts become fragmented and discouraging when you feel overwhelmed. Scattered projects and responsibilities tug in a multitude of directions, draining you of your creativity. The first step to move away from this trap is to narrow your focus. Look for the end pieces, so to speak. Writers write. That’s your framework.

Think about it. When is the last time you wrote something new? Better yet, when’s the last time you completed a project?

Be Realistic

Stress can be good or bad. Good stress motivates. Bad stress works as a thief robbing us of our valuable time and energy. It tends to trick us into thinking we deserve to relax by spending time doing other things before we get started. Putting off doing what we know we should do produces more stress. It’s a downward spiral that leads to frustration and even depression. When it robs us of our creative writing time, it crosses the line. Check out what you do to relax. Many times it’s really procrastinating and adds stress to our lives.

Another stress generator is the comparison factor. Individual writers are motivated differently. It’s not a bad thing to learn from other writer’s techniques for staying on task, but be careful not to compare your progress based on their success. Implement what you learn, but make it your own. Life deals out different circumstances for each person. These unseen situations make a big difference. Keep your eyes on what you need to get done instead of what others accomplish.

Set realistic goals. Don’t burden yourself with too many goals. Remember you’re trying to relieve stress, not create it. Look back at the notes you made. What do you want to write? Use the fresh information to put together your plans. It works like connecting the end pieces of the puzzle. It gives you a framework to work within.

Strengths and Weaknesses

It’s vital to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. I’m a morning person, and I develop my writing schedule around this fact. If I squandered my morning hours, I wouldn’t accomplish my goals. When I slip into bed each night, I know what I’ll be working on in the morning. On the other hand, I use my evening hours for research, catching up correspondence, and reading previously written pieces from a fresh perspective.

Look at your list of strengths and weaknesses. Use this knowledge to your benefit. If you rarely find time to actually write, switch things around. Make it the first thing you do. Schedule fifteen or twenty minutes four or five days a week. It’s a start.

Make Changes

What things keep you from writing? Responsibilities fill our lives, but beyond that, what robs you of your time?

What do you do to relax? Read, watch television, shop, play computer games, go out to dinner? Such things offer diversions. None of these things are bad, but if overdone, these leisure activities actually increase stress. Why? You are a writer. Deep within you resides the need to write. When you bypass that need, it lingers unsatisfied. Walla! More stress.

So how do you break out of this cycle? One possibility is to join a writing group, or find an accountability partner. Knowing someone else expects to read what we’ve written can provide the push needed to put pen to paper. It also provides experience for working with deadlines.

Designate time to write. The old saying, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time,” applies here. Without a plan to write, dreams remain unfulfilled. Frustration and feelings of lagging behind creep up on you. To protect yourself, make a plan. Keep it flexible. My first such goal to write twenty minutes a day four days a week encouraged me to write more days than I missed. Once I established the habit, I wrote more often and for longer periods of time.

Develop new habits. Try writing for fifteen minutes before you open your e-mail or turn on the TV. Initiating changes like these promotes disciplined growth that becomes second nature.

Learn to say, “No.” It’s not always easy, but sometimes you’ll have to decline the opportunity to take on a new project or responsibility. In fact, you may have to eliminate something from your schedule. It’s easy to get in over your head. Don’t sink. If you are consistently overwhelmed, look over all the things clamoring for your time and eliminate something.

Pace Yourself

Be careful. Now that you have a plan and a list of projects and ideas, don’t overwhelm yourself with more tasks than you have time to accomplish. I’ve seen many a writer make grandiose lists of projects and expect to complete them all in a week. Break your projects down into smaller tasks. Spread your work out over the days, weeks or months necessary to finish. Manageable tasks lead to the completion of your goal. This is key to stepping away from overwhelmed.

Pick one task or idea to work on. Give yourself a deadline. If it’s a longer project such as a novel, allow enough time to complete the project but schedule a daily or weekly word count assignment. Make your progress measurable. This helps later when you may feel like you haven’t accomplished enough. Even if you write 1,000 words a week, you’ll have 4,000 words by the end of the month and 48,000 by the end of the year.

Have Fun But Stay Focused

Not every aspect of the writing life is fun. I enjoy the creative process. Getting the rough draft of a new story down on paper thrills me. While involved with editing, rewriting, promoting and other similar long-term projects, I challenge myself to write new shorter pieces to submit along the way. These creative endeavors inject my writing life with a dose of fun and nourishes my muse.

Enjoy writing, but stay focused. Maintain projects with deadlines at the top of your list of things to do, but keep your list of projects and ideas handy. When you’re feeling bogged down and overwhelmed, take a break and write for fun. Choose something from your list and give yourself a fifteen minute free-writing break.

Learn to use your strengths and weakness to your advantage and avoid making excuses. Look over the list of things that keep you from writing and eliminate what you can. Rearrange your schedule. Seriously consider the steps you jotted down to help reach your dream. Implement them.

When you take the time to arrange the pieces, a clear image emerges. It’s you, the writer who stepped away from overwhelmed.

About the Author
Author and freelance writer, Donna Sundblad, resides in Florida with her husband, Rick. Check ePress-online for details regarding her soon-to-be-published book, Pumping Your Muse. As an owner/editor of Team Spirit Critique and Editing, LLC, Donna helps other writers follow their dreams. Visit her website at www.theinkslinger.net for more information.