Excerpted Focused: Reclaim Your Time, Ditch Overwhelm, and Do Less Better, Part V: Raise Your Resilience

By now, you’re ready to kick Hustle Culture to the curb. You’re a unique individual with unique rhythms and strengths to make the impact you want to make. You know you have exactly the time you need, you’ve learned how to get focus time on your calendar, and you know how to create a well crafted to-do list. 

But Hustle Culture is pervasive; you’ve been steeped in it your whole life. Remember that kitten poster in the back of your kindergarten classroom that said Hang in there? What that poor kitty needed was permission to take a break! So yes, you’ve been getting subtle messages of capitalism and Hustle Culture from the start. 

When things pile up or don’t go as planned, you may forget that you’re an awesome Focus Culture inhabitant, and fall back into overwhelm and frustration. 

No matter how much you embrace Focus Culture, sometimes you just have too much to do, too many choices, or too many other people influencing your actions and reactions. That’s ok. Let’s talk about it. 

Let's revisit our soup one more time. Sometimes you just have too many ingredients. You feel the pressure to use them all before they go bad. Sometimes there’s just too much to do and not enough time. What then?

EASY Method

Even when you’ve followed this system — blocked out time for the most important things and gotten really clear on your goals, projects and tasks — sometimes there is still too much to do.

I have an EASY acronym to help you thin down your obligations and get out of overwhelm.

​​Eliminate

Scan your to-do list, project, or calendar for tasks you can outright eliminate. How many are “must do” and how many are “should do” or even “would be nice if I have time to do”? Are there tasks that are no longer relevant? At the very least, can anything be eliminated from “right now” and rescheduled to another day, month, or even quarter? Projects can always have a version 2.0!

Automate and Delegate

This step is all about getting a person or tool to do a task for you. What on your list can be delegated to someone on your team or hired out on a project basis,? Whether they are business tasks (having your VA set up your newsletter) or home/personal tasks (having your partner in charge of dinner or kids folding laundry), there are definitely things on your list that you do not have to do.

Can something be systematized so it takes less time? Can a piece of technology automate that email or set the crockpot for dinner? Get ruthless on what you automate and delegate — your genius is probably not in scheduling emails or sorting clothes. (Note that automating and systematizing takes some time in the setup, but it pays off again and again in the long run. Block off some focus time for setting up systems, so that the plates can spin themselves without requiring constant attention.)

Simplify and Schedule

Once the tasks have been narrowed down, ask yourself if you can simplify any of the steps. Does it all need to be included in this version? Is there an easier way to do it?
Once you do that, you can schedule any remaining tasks onto your calendar, so you know exactly when they are going to get done. This helps make sure you are being realistic as well. If you block time for tasks in your calendar, you’ll be forced to think about how much can fit in each time slot. This also helps you set aside distraction-free focus time to do these most important tasks. 

You are the CEO

The last step is to remember WHY you are doing each of these other steps. You are the CEO. When you choose to delegate setting up your social media, it means you get to focus on sales. If you schedule time to work on your product, you can focus on your family when it's done.

Get the Focused Workbook from the free Book Bonuses for an E.A.S.Y Method worksheet, and get your copy of Focused: Reclaim Your Time, Ditch Overwhelm, and Do Less Better for more ideas on raising your resilience, finding your focus, and saying goodbye to hustle culture for good