How Much is Too Much?

What’s Next?

With this insane spiral of trying to do too much, I thought this might be a good time to look back on the trials I’ve done so far and discuss how it impacted my life so far. With nine full trials and this misstep, I’ll be covering two to three trials per post.

Thanks for reading, and remember to check out the giveaway for a chance to win free books!

Over the past week, I’ve taken a step back and just put all of my side projects on hold. Looking at what I’ve been doing since the beginning of the year, I realize I’ve been piling on too much. The same applies to what I’ve been doing professionally at my day job. I’ve been trying to get every single request done. Promising deadlines that weren’t met became the standard. Juggling tasks from different people, causing projects to take longer and longer. I was totally beaten down by the load I was putting on and it wasn’t helping me or the people I was making bad promises to.

Last week was the pinnacle of this build up. The day started off okay but spiraled out of control. I learned an important lesson that I’ve read time and time again. For some reason, it never settled in until now. The importance of saying no.

Why You Need to Say No

Before my meltdown last week, I was trying to do it all and make everyone happy. If someone stopped by my desk and asked about the email they sent me, I would often look into it and see if I could help out. Time and time again, I would drop what I was doing to work on the next issue someone reported. The role I work in has me working with the data behind the scenes at my employer, which unfortunately means my team has a part to play in nearly all aspects of the company. This approach has often led to some partially completed projects being forgotten for the latest problem or request that has come up.

This inability to say no wasn’t only a part of my work life, but every side project that entered my mind was now being shoved into my weekly schedule. Whether it’s a podcast, video, book, business, you name it, I’ve probably started laying out the foundation in a notebook over the past four months.

Of course, this isn’t to say trying things out is bad. Hell, that’s the exact reason I started this blog. I wanted to keep an online journal of my experiences and share my thoughts with any readers. The important thing is to find out what does and doesn’t work. There isn’t enough time in the world to say yes to everything.

Opportunity Cost and Why It Matters

I was an economics major in college. A professor of mine had a quote, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The concept he was getting at was known as opportunity cost.

Everything we do cost resources. These range from natural resources, money, time, or another opportunity. I think the last item on that list is the most neglected. If you have lunch at home, you can’t have that same meal at the diner down the street. The opportunity is now spent.

Opportunity cost is the reason saying no matters. Taking on too many responsibilities left me feeling like I was juggling chainsaws. New ones were being thrown into the mix with every thought of, “I can do that too.”

I’m still finding out what my yeses and nos are, but taking a step back and reading has definitely helped. Talking with some friends and family has definitely helped too. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or burnt out, try taking a step back and put some of your obligations on the chopping block. Ask yourself the hard questions. Tell not only others, but yourself, no.

If I told you I’m doing well in the past few weeks there’s a good chance I was lying to you. Perhaps it’s being able to hide behind a keyboard that makes honesty easier, or that it’s just a hassle to tell people things aren’t going well. “Good” feels like a programmed response to “How’s it going?” Or. “How are you?” No one wants to hear anything outside that standard response, but sometimes that’s just how it goes.

The past month or so has left me both physically and mentally drained. I don’t know what it is. Stuck in a rut? Poor sleep? Diet? Depression? I really don’t know, but I just feel that being honest about how things are going might set better expectations for this trial, which I think I am going to put on hold for now. Stopping this trial early is not something that I want to do, but I don’t believe I will be putting in enough effort to share an experience about freelancing. Lately, I’ve been getting home from work with barely enough energy to take care of myself.

Last week, I thought my issue was from trying to handle too many things at once. Establishing a priority of what to focus on was supposed to help, but even still I just feel heavy. I wake up unmotivated and go to bed the same. When I do feel things are starting to go well, I often feel great, but shortly after, feel like I come down from a high. And the comedown is hard. This rollercoaster of emotions hit a new climax today as I drove home for an event tomorrow. Emotionally I wanted to drive into head-on traffic, not even exaggerating here. Luckily, the logical part of my brain won that argument. I mean there was no need to drag someone else into my shitty day.

In the end, I don’t want this to come off as me making excuses for this trial, complaining about life being hard, or whining. At the end of the day, I just don’t have it in me to keep this up as of late. If you read this far thank you for the support on the blog. I’m not sure if I will write anything or not next week, but will post around as usual. Perhaps this depressed feeling will pass by then, or it will just inspire another rant about the current status of my mental state. All in all, I think writing this has already helped a bit, whether I actually click publish or not…

Getting Started in Freelancing Is Hard, Obviously

Unfortunately, this week has left me with little to discuss on the actual trial I am partaking in right now, but it has got me pondering a series of bad decisions lately.

As a quick overview, I signed up for a freelancing website, upwork.com, set up my account, applied for about 10 positions, and waited. This hasn’t been terrible, just uneventful.

Over the duration of this trial, I hope to try a few different sites and other options for finding work. What I do want to avoid is starting a part-time job. In my opinion, this is completely different from freelancing. I am not looking for additional income, what I am looking for is a level of freedom and choice I can’t get at my day job. A freelancer has more flexibility in hours, projects worked on, contract terms, and rate of pay. This, of course, isn’t to start the myth that a freelancer always gets to choose each of these elements, but I feel he or she has a greater scope of influence on those elements.

Priority and Why It Matters

The English word priority came about in the 15th Century. It essentially means the very first thing. I recently attained this specific knowledge from the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. When discussing priority he points out a clear problem with our modern use of the word. We pluralized it. How many priorities do you have on your to-do list? Your project plans? Bucket List?

I’ve recently found myself in a particular struggle. Working on too many projects at once has led to exhaustion with little to no results. Trying to manage a day job, several side projects, a social life, and a healthy lifestyle is not viable in the long run. Trying to have it all often leads to having nothing at all, at least nothing of actual importance.

Take a Step Back

For the next few days, I’ll be lucky enough to spend some time back home with family and put some projects on the shelf for a bit. I hope to take a look at some of the projects I’ve started and try set a priority for what I am working on.

I don’t want to come off implying that nothing can be worked on in parallel or there’s no point in starting a new project. I am referring to constantly adding a new “priority” to an ever-expanding list of daily commitments. Giving new projects and ideas a try is essentially what inspired me to start this blog, to write about those experiences. The trouble I’ve run into is trying to do too much all at once.

Starting Essentialism as mentioned above really got me roped into this idea, though it was something on my mind even before I started the book. If you find yourself having trouble with sticking to something and saying yes to new commitments before considering what impact it will have on your current commitments, I definitely recommend this book. Even just the intro chapter got my mind hooked.

Next week, I hope to have a better update on freelancing!