Are you overwhelmed? Do you ever get overwhelmed? Man, I do. All the time. My brain is always on and processing—either trying to process existing ideas or trying to figure out where to put all of the new ones that I haven’t had time to really think about. And it doesn’t stop. It’s all day, every day. There’s always a bunch of potential somethings bouncing around my head. And let me be clear—I love it and I’m grateful for it, but it is overwhelming and exhausting trying to keep track of it all and figure out where to put all of those ideas.
I sometimes liken it to a big meal. If you’re sitting there looking at everything—the hors d'oeuvres, the appetizers, the main course, the side dishes, the dessert cart, the cheese plate, the everything—it’s just an impossible mountain of food and I think, “No.” Maybe some people can do it, but I can’t. There was a place in LA and I don’t even know if it’s still there—it probably is because it’s been there for years. It’s called Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood and Barney’s has this massive menu that’s pages and pages. We used to go there quite a bit, but I think I’ve only ever had two things there because the menu was just so overwhelming that I couldn’t work through it. I couldn’t make a decision, so I would just keep getting the one or two things that were familiar and that I knew I would like.
Ideas are like that for me. If I get ideas all the time or I have ideas that I want to do and I look at all of them—even if it is a mountain of potential inspiration—I just don’t act. Maybe that’s also true for you. What I’ve learned through reading people much smarter than me is that humans don’t tend to do well with a ton of choices. Or brains just aren’t designed for it. The same goes for multitasking and there’s study after study that shows that more choice is not always better for the human brain.
So where am I going with all of this?
Well, it’s kind of based on the adage “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” There’s a concept in psychology called chunking, which basically says that information is easier to understand when it’s broken down into smaller parts. While the smaller parts may be bound to a larger whole, by breaking the larger thing into smaller parts they become more familiar and more easily remembered. Make sense? I think the same thing can be applied to creativity, but it’s sort of in reverse.
What do I mean by that?
Well for me, that means looking at the mountain of ideas and pulling it apart into smaller, disparate pieces and asking, “What’s doable today, this week, or this month?” I can also look at them in terms of dependencies. If idea number six can’t even really begin until idea number four is done, then idea number six doesn’t need to be on my to-do list. Not my short-term list, anyway. It’s still out there, but I don’t need to worry about it and let it influence whether I work on the things that aren’t directly connected to it or dependent on it.
To borrow a term from Adrianne, if I look at things more strategically, rather than just as a single mass of ideas, I tend to get less overwhelmed and less stuck.
For example, there are several things that I’m working on right now—a couple that I’ve come back to and some that are new ideas. In the past, because that’s been my pattern, I would look at all of them and not do anything because it was overwhelming and I just wouldn’t be able to decide where to start. Where I’m at right now, and I mentioned this before, is that there’s one thing that has to exist first, before any of the other things can even begin. So by default that’s the first—and maybe for now the only—thing I work on. Once that’s done, in beta, or in a state of near-completion, then I can start planning out, “previzzing,” or even beginning work on the next phase or thing that dovetails into it. But it doesn’t make sense to spend any time worrying about any of the subsequent stuff in detail if the initial hinge pin isn’t finished first. None of it matters, and what’s more, none of it has anywhere to live until the first thing is done. So I can try to put that stuff out of my mind until the first part is done or close to done. Once that piece—or really any piece—is done, then I can go, “Okay, what comes next?” And if I start to look at things sequentially and try to see how they fit into the bigger picture rather than just looking at everything as the bigger picture, I think the outcome will be different than what it has been in the past. At least that’s my hope.
And just to give you an idea of the kinds of projects and ideas bouncing around at any given moment, I jotted down a list of things that came to mind before recording this. The list includes a mobile app, a desktop app, a social platform, a new website, two new podcasts, the relaunch of an old podcast, multiple painting series, a solo zine, a collaborative zine, an album of electronica, and a new book—and that’s just what I can remember at the moment. It’s a lot, and it’s always evolving.
The other side of the coin to the idea of chunking is that we also need to take the small wins on the way to the bigger goals and achievements. There’s a ton of research around this as well that shows that our brains are wired to respond to rewards and that celebrating the little victories more often has greater positive results than completing larger projects or achieving “more significant’’ goals. Studies show that regular smaller wins from ordinary activities are cumulative and tend to have long-lasting effects. I absolutely think that’s true for me. In my personal life, I begin pretty much every day with a walk through the forest behind our house, which really helps set the tone for the day. I know that no matter what else happens or what I do or don’t finish, at least I’ve gotten out of the house and I’ve started the day from a place of gratitude. The same goes for doing yoga regularly or riding my bike. I may not have come up with some great new idea (which we don’t really have much control over anyway), but I did choose to do something for my body and my mind, and knowing that tends to give me better clarity in how I approach my professional or creative life. Taking this “new,” more strategic approach to my project lists offers its own set of little victories. Every piece of the puzzle I complete provides fuel or inspiration or just a sense of pride at completing something that acts as inertia or momentum to help take on the next thing. To be fair, new should be in quotes because I feel like I’ve tried a similar approach to all of this before, but for whatever reason it fell by the wayside. I think what’s different now is the realization that none of the things on my lists are things that I “have to” do or even “should” do. If something is on my list, it’s because I want it to be there and I want to see whatever it is out in the world. And that is a pretty remarkable place to be.
Thanks so much for reading.
I can relate to this so hard! I’ve been using a Notion based system for the past 3 years that really helps me with overwhelm and being strategic. I know there are hundreds of systems for this and I’ve tried a few. It’s nice to have found one that works for my brain.
Loved the forest walk bit. That’s something I do every day too, sometimes with OTP in my AirPods!