One of my absolute favorite books about conquering procrastination is The Complete Idiot's Guide to Overcoming Procrastination, by L. Michelle Tullier, Ph.D.

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."

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.

It's 2 AM and you're lying in bed, mentally composing emails while planning your grocery list and worrying about deadlines. Welcome to the overachiever brain—that magnificent, exhausting organ that never learned how to turn off. Here's how to harness that spinning energy instead of letting it drain you, starting with the game-changing difference between ideas and action items.

You know that feeling when you walk into your office and immediately want to walk right back out? When just looking at your desk gives you chest palpitations? When your email notifications sound like a smoke alarm that won't quit? This isn't the time for elaborate productivity systems or color-coded organizational schemes. When everything's urgent, you need emergency triage. You need tools that work fast, cut through the chaos, and give you immediate breathing room.

If you're reading this, chances are you're drowning in responsibilities. We need fast, practical solutions for actual problems—our own version of the magic bag, ready for deployment when chaos strikes.

An important reminder from high achiever Susan L. Taylor for we fellow high achievers: relaxation is not a luxury. If you don't make time to recuperate, you will burn out. Please don't do that to yourself. You're worth taking care of!

If I say the word “routine” to a group of people, you can bet there will be two kinds of reactions: a visceral shudder, and a smiling nod. Why? Well, I would say it’s because that word means very different things to these two groups. And it’s such a polarizing word that really I haven’t seen a reaction anywhere in the middle. No “meh, a routine.” Just either a screeching “I hate routines!” or a beaming “Boy, I love routines!"

Procrastination often happens when a task feels too big or ambiguous. Writers tend to think things like "today I need to write" or "I want to make some progress today." Writing and progress are vague concepts that make for hard starting points. Then our inner resistance fires up, making it even more daunting! Writing mega-charges that resistance. It's so personal, exposing our deepest selves.

When time feels impossibly scarce, I've found that the "15-minute solution" can be transformative. The concept is simple: commit to just 15 minutes of focused work on a daunting task. No matter how overwhelming your project seems, anyone can endure 15 minutes. What makes this approach powerful isn't just the time management aspect—it's the psychological shift that occurs once you begin.

I've had two conversations about to-do lists this week that got me pondering how easy it is to overthink these simple productivity tools.

I want to show you some (possibly new) ways to think about routines.

A friend recently told me he did not like to read time management books because he then felt he had to change everything about himself at once: time management improvement meant a total makeover, immediately. I understood. I've often felt that way myself. And who would want to read such a book if they then felt compelled to change everything about themselves! How exhausting. All-or-nothing, perfectionist thinking can creep in almost undetected ...