When you’re overwhelmed, don’t just keep pushing through. I know too many fellow high achievers who feel so much pressure to perform that they just keep trying to knock out their to-do lists—and hamster-wheel themselves into the ground.

With the end of the semester and the mountain of wrap-up that goes with it, I have had overwhelm on my mind more than ever. Last week I wrote about my top tips for managing email overwhelm. Now I want to turn to another big overwhelm trap: the to-do list. But surprise! I actually don’t keep a to-do list. Instead, I use my calendar, and I have a wish list on the side. Let me tell you why.

This particular Monday was a strangely-split day: the first half was victorious, in which I knocked out something I've been procrastinating for weeks. The second half was a vicious struggle, when a plumbing emergency struck. But I persevered, and I did so because of great support systems.

My robot vacuum ate some of my jigsaw puzzle pieces and I didn't discover the crime scene until I emptied the dustbin a week later. A funny mishap turned into a meditation on how one new variable can throw off a trusted routine—and why, when we're overwhelmed, small problems can feel enormous.

I haven't blogged in three weeks. In trying to use this as a chance to deliberately let go a little, I've learned something important: breaks are, in fact, O.K., even if we feel otherwise.

I'm a sucker for a YouTube video about self-improvement. Over the years I've consumed thousands of hours of content about decluttering and organizing and minimalism and cleaning and building better habits and maximizing my productivity. For a while I found this content really helpful. But I feel like more these days, I instead get an unsettling pit in my stomach and a whispered voice in my head that says, you'll never be improved enough. Despite all your hard work, you stil

Have you ever felt like the only way your life would be in order is if you made a time-blocked agenda for the week, scheduling your time down to the minute and slotting in every task you can think of to meet every goal you can think of for yourself? There's a word for that, my friends: hypervigilance.

As an HSP I absolutely hate "busy" (which for me equals overwhelm), and I'm on a mission to obliterate it for myself—and, I hope, for all of you, my wonderful readers.

How do we carve out legato time when the world seems designed to keep us in staccato mode?

Do you make New Year's resolutions? I don't—hear me out.

Anyone stressed as the holidays kick into high gear? My hand is raised.

I've really taken some lessons forward from my time off, and I want to share those gentle reminders with you.

When overwhelm threatens, remember that one of your best defensive responses is delegation!

For the sake of our sanity, my dear overwhelmed overachievers, we need a fall break.

"The most dramatic, effective way to boost your productivity is to completely avoid e-mail for the first hour of the day."

You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning with good intentions, and then suddenly it's 1 a.m. and you're still working? Yeah. I've been living that reality for longer than I care to admit. And a couple Mondays ago I ran myself into a brick wall at 90 miles an hour like a 1980s crash test dummy.

Henry Rollins—musician, writer, and all-around creative— wrote this back in his 2012 column, "Summer Be Gone!" when he was ready to wave...

Yes, that Kris Jenner. Of the Kardashians. Are you surprised to see her name pop up on my blog? Well, confession time: I've watched the Kardashians for years, from way back in the Keeping Up days. But anyway, I find them endlessly fascinating—Kris in particular. And yesterday a clip from Kanye West's just-released documentary started making the media rounds. I started watching through my fingers with squinted eyes, but I quickly sat up straighter as I watched Kris at the h

I've developed a fresh appreciation for my favorite topic: overwhelm. Though I'm not sure it's the field test I wanted, I'm smack in the middle of taking my own advice. My best friend has been my GPS system. You've heard me talk about this before: Gather, Prioritize, Simplify.

You know exactly what you need to do. The task sits there on your list, staring at you with judgmental eyes. But somehow, you just... can't start. Welcome to the peculiar purgatory of the overwhelmed overachiever: knowing what needs doing but feeling mysteriously unable to do it. This paralysis isn't a character flaw—it's a predictable pattern with predictable solutions.