When your work is your life and vice versa, your head can spin with all there is to do. All the ideas, all the things to learn, all the places you need to go – virtually and actually – to write, speak, find your community and build your audience. It can be utterly overwhelming! And even as you look at the list as long as your arm, you sit listlessly, doing nothing, stuck.

Too much is a recipe for overwhelm.

Converge

When you converge, you select and perfect. You choose and prioritize.

And, if the thought of sorting these tasks and ranking them is still overwhelming, it is likely you’re not a gifted converger. No worries. Use a tool. This one’s a doozy – stay tuned.

Side note: Converging is the opposite of diverging. Divergence is letting in all ideas and seeking more. The problem is when you try to do both at the same time. You’re diverging – having great ideas – all the while thinking, yeah but, how do I do any of this? Diverge first – let the ideas come, and capture them. Then converge.

The moral is: If you seek to shake overwhelm, converge and take the helm.

Magic Convergence Tool: How Now Wow Yow!

Draw yourself a box and divide that into four boxes.

  • In the upper left, write the word “HOW”
  • lower left “NOW”
  • In the upper right you write the word “YOW”
  • and the lower right “WOW”

As you can see, the vertical axis is for How difficult it is to implement, ease of execution. The horizontal axis is impact on what you’re trying to do.

So take your ideas and tasks and sort them.

  • Ask yourself: Is this easy to do?
  • Yes? then it goes in either the NOW or WOW boxes (lower on the “Ease of execution” scale)
  • Decide: Normal or Big impact? If easy to do, and normal impact, it goes in the NOW box.
  • If easy to do and will have a big impact, shift it to WOW.
  • Ask yourself: Is this hard to do? Yes? then it belongs in either the HOW or YOW box.
  • Decide: if you’re not sure how to do it, and it is of normal impact, place the idea in the HOW box.
  • Ask yourself: is this a big impact idea, that I don’t know how to do? That’s a YOW idea.

Now, it’s much easier to see what to do first. Concentrate of WOW and NOW tasks, and set a schedule for when and how you’ll learn to cycle in the HOW tasks. Keep an eye out for that YOW opportunity though. It might be a great shortcut, or just a lot of fun, but you’d hate to miss out.

I have long suffered from the “all my ideas are so great” disease that kept me overwhelmed and trying to do everything. Some people call that Shiny Object Syndrome. I would consider it less of being easily distracted and more of a Magpie syndrome. I wanted to keep and shine and adore all of my shiny objects. And now I can more easily see which are gems, and which are not. I hope this helps someone who might be overwhelmed, today.

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If you’re looking for clarity of vision and more ideation and convergence tools and techniques, be sure to join us in the free FB group – Write Without the Fight. And if you’re ready for ongoing support, join the Mighty Writers Club. The Club is a treasure trove of programs about how to activate and maximize your creativity –  So join us in the Clubhouse.  Sometimes, clarity is everything.