Jun 7, 2021

When life gets overwhelming

Hello everyone 👋

Oh boy, my life went from 0-100 real quick. I guess me missing my Sunday deadline for this newsletter is an appropriate testament to how busy it’s gotten… It’s safe to say that I’m a tad bit overwhelmed right now (although that seems to be the case for the past few weeks unfortunately).

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

So I’m overwhelmed with work.

Yep, thats me right now. Out of nowhere, it seems like I just got a continent-load of work just dumped on me — my research project just picked up dramatically, I need to catch up on a lot of BioDojo and iAscend deadlines that I was supposed work on, and continue doing everything else. Plus, I just went to my chiropractor and he told me that my back is super misaligned (thanks to all of the hours I spend sitting on my desk and working). Great.

What do I do? It’s a paralyzing state to be in once you’re overwhelmed with something — almost like you’re running a race where you’re progressively slower than the runner in front of you. Weird analogy I guess, but all to say that it’s discouraging and an unfortunately perpetuating cycle of trying to get caught up and trying to dig up some motivation.

So, I could spend this newsletter sulking about this or I can talk about some actionable things that I’m planning to do.

Leveraging my resources appropriately. My to-do list app is an absolute overload from all of the items and deadlines that I’ve missed, so much so that I purposely avoid this list because it just simulates more stress. I’m going to clear all deadlines and reset — maybe a couple of tasks a day — and hopefully get back in the groove.
Re-prioritizing (and watching) my time. How am I using my time? That’s a question I’ll be asking myself this coming week to account for where it’s going. My priority right now is to catch up on deadlines, so that means: shortening/cancelling meetings, opting out of “non-mandatory” commitments, and pushing out some tasks until later.
Establishing an accountability system. I’m sharing all of this to put it out there to the world that I’m not where I want to be. By next week, I’ll give an update on how it is. Having an accountability system (as I’ve mentioned several times already on this newsletter) is crucial towards breaking bad habits or forming good ones.
Taking care of me. I notice that when I get overwhelmed, I usually sacrifice myself first — the amount of sleep I’m getting, working out, spending time reading or doing things for myself. That’s what I don’t want to do. These are the things that “ground me,” and I need to keep this going to establish a baseline to fall back on.

So yeah, that’s the plan. I hope that you can relate or take away some of the things I’ve shared with you, maybe for the next time you’re in a similar predicament. I’ll check in with you all next week — have a great one :)

Me this Week 🤡

What I learned — about the fight against homelessness & the housing situation, about sleep through this great book I’m listening to (Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD), and more on phagocytic immunology assays
What I did — worked on a global health competition against some med students with Jenny & Vaneeza, put in several 12hr lab days this week
What I’m going to do — get caught up with everything that I have to get done, consistently stretch (for my back) and listen to books, sleep and wake up earlier

Quote of the Week 💬

Every moment is a fresh beginning — T.S. Eliot

Videos of the Week 🎬

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Brandon Yu @brandonoliveryu

Becoming better in public and sharing weekly learnings throughout my personal pursuit of ikigai.

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