Once or twice a year, the same thing happens to me. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I feel overwhelmed with simply too many different things to do. It’s hard to juggle a lot of unrelated balls, and I inevitably let a couple fall at the beginning, before I finally re-learn what I learnt the last time this happened, and juggle the balls effectively again. Once that’s done, I feel efficient, happy, on top of things.

Why do I have to re-learn it all over again each time? Each set of balls is different, but I think in this case it’s simply a failure of paying attention to my own failures and learnings. I’ve already successfully juggled “too many balls” a number of times, and each time I applied pretty much the same method.

Part of the problem when you get overwhelmed is that you feel stressed, and you don’t think clearly anymore. That may explain why I don’t automatically recall what I did last time, when this happens. So, in the hopes of helping the many future stressed me’s, and the many stressed you’s out there, here’s my way to keep on juggling when life and work (they always seem to do it in concert) throw you another half-dozen balls.