How to: Avoid overwhelm

With Tess Robinson from Smack Bang Designs

Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could measure the scale of the globe’s collective stress at any given time, in the same way we measure the scale of an earthquake or tornado?

With a sneaky suspicion that small business owners would be raising the average stress levels (along with homeschooling parents, healthcare workers and the elderly, of course), Owner and Creative Director of Smack Bang Designs Tess Robinson straps us in for the journey around that sinking feeling...

“A crisis of this scale is sure to birth worry, stress and overwhelm. After all, we are facing not just an unprecedented pandemic, but a global recession, too. Our usual routines, daily to-do’s and the way we’ve become accustomed to running our businesses have been thrown out the window,” says Tess. “While every business is different, every business owner is facing the same battle - to simply keep the lights on.”

“If you’re feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, the good news is that you’re not alone. The bad news is that it’s not helping your bottom line. The problem with stress is that it activates our fight or flight response, which dramatically limits our ability to access our ‘imagination room’ - the prefrontal cortex responsible for higher-level cognitive processes like creativity, problem solving, decision making and self control. Tools that could assist you through this crisis, you might agree?”

If you’ve been locked out of your own imagination room, here are Tess’s tips on what to do about it... “The trick is to be very discerning about your to-do list and limit yourself to only 3 core items per day with high-impact results.”

Stop and take stock. Idleness is not an extravagant vacation or bad habit. It is as indispensable to the brain as calcium is to your bones. Deprived of it, we find ourselves wading through murky waters of indecision, fatigue and a severe lack of lust for life. Whilst not exactly enjoyable, there is a certain stillness that naturally comes with self-isolation that allows to stop and take stock. We’re all so used to being busy, but now is the perfect time to get comfortable with stillness, because this is where new ideas, better decisions and creative energy is born. When you create space and psychological bandwidth, you’re better able to access your brain’s best ideas and resources.

Prioritise your priorities. If you’re a business owner there’s a good chance there’s no shortage of ideas, particularly when faced with a challenge. So, if you’re staring at this crisis with a million and one plates spinning above your head, it’s time to prioritise. Begin by doing a brain dump and list every single thing that you feel like you should or could be doing to get through this crisis. Then immediately cross off the three tasks with potential for the least impact. Prioritise remaining items, from tasks that will literally save your bacon to those that may afford you a piece of bacon in the next grocery delivery.

Give yourself permission to do things differently. 2020 is dramatically different. There are no longer standards, rules or expectations of how things should be done. No-one knows what the future holds or how this thing is going to play out. So, give yourself permission to play the game a little differently. Take bigger risks, broaden your approach and your services, write your own rules, say yes to things you usually wouldn’t and think laterally in every situation.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and freaking out, check in with yourself; How could you use this crisis to reshape the way you do business, what does your business utopia look like? Rethink and play outside of your usual rules, reshape what the future could look like for your business and yourself and focus on the bright spots

It can’t all be doom and gloom, right? Maybe you have a really epic team who are nailing this WFH life. Or a partner who is now home more often and brought the washing in yesterday! Or just a dog at your feet who can listen to all you problems and not talk back?

Choose which frame of mind you’d like to ‘wear’ for the day. When you’re not sucked into the vortex of ‘The Crisis’, you can better access your imagination room and identify the opportunities that will see you survive and thrive.