4030: 10 Signs Your Life is Too Busy by Amy Brinton with No Sidebar on Recognizing Burnout

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[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_03] This is Optimal Living Daily. 10 signs your life is too busy by Amy Brinton with NoSidebar.com. And I'm Justin Malik, your very own personal narrator. Welcome to Optimal Living Daily, OLD for short or old for shorter, where I read the best blogs to you with permission from the authors or websites covering productivity, minimalism, personal development, all of that kind of stuff. And with that, let's get right to another post and start optimizing your life.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_03] 10 signs your life is too busy by Amy Brinton with NoSidebar.com. When the economy plummeted in 2008, my husband and I did what so many other Americans did. First, we panicked a little, maybe a lot. And then we rolled up our sleeves and really, really went to work. We went into hyper-survival mode and between the two of us, we took on every extra job and opportunity that came our way,

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_03] all while trying to raise a one and three-year-old. My anxiety was high during that time and my self-care was low. I distinctly remember uttering this phrase to my husband one evening. It's literally been like six weeks since we've had a day to sleep in. It was exhausting. It's funny, we began taking on all of these extra things in our lives to survive,

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_03] but the end result was that we became immune to saying no, even when the economy balanced itself out again. It's like once you start saying yes to too much, you automatically keep doing it. It feels reckless, but you do it anyway. Let's not fall into that trap. Signs you are too busy. Let's learn to recognize the signals before we get resistant to saying no to things that we simply don't have enough time or energy for.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_03] Most likely things that aren't even meaningful to our lives. Number one, your thoughts are in constant disarray. It's hard to concentrate on a single task. You jump from one thing to the next with no real plan and become increasingly forgetful. It's difficult to sleep. You wake in the middle of the night thinking about work or sometimes nothing of real importance that needs to be done. I know this one. It's like all of the wires in my head are crossed.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_03] Our brains can only process so much. Number two, the non-essentials take over. When I consistently fail to plan dinner for my family, make sure everyone has clean clothes for the next day until it's midnight, or don't really listen to my daughter on our car ride home from school, that's when I know the non-essentials have taken over and have left very little room for the essentials. Number three, everything feels important.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_03] That little frilly detail for the church activity, the dozens of homemade cookies for the social event because Costco won't do, or the need to impress company from out of town by running out and making new purchases. We can lose our ability to reason between what is essentially important and what is not, because it all feels important. Number four, your home or workspace is a mess.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_03] The telltale sign for me, multiple piled-hide laundry baskets throughout the house. With a family of six, this is the start of a steady decline in the state of our home, and it's not worth it. Is that one clean or dirty? I'm ashamed to say, as I do a quick smell test on the t-shirts to decide if I fold, wash, or rewash if I've guessed wrong. Number five, you lose track of what's happening in everyone's life but your own.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_03] I was just with Stacey and forgot to ask her how her vacation was. I forgot to mail Wyatt's birthday card. This one stings. How can we take a worthy interest in others when we've got too much happening within us? Number six, you have feelings of resentment and bitterness. Because it's hard to draw that fine line in the sand to reason about what we ought to do or not, we sometimes fail in our decision-making. When we say yes to too much and bitterness and resentment set in,

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_03] we kind of just know. Know that we shouldn't have taken on that extra thing. Number seven, self-care is low or non-existent. You forgo your regular exercise routine. Trade healthy eating for the quicker option. Don't take any time to relax and just be and make less and less time for doing things that you love. Number eight, irritability creeps in and spills over to the ones you love.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_03] We all know it's hard to be calm and rational, even loving when our priorities are not in check. Number nine, you're spending too much time on social media. Some may avoid social media altogether during overly busy seasons, but for others, me, social media might be a nice escape from the crazy reality we've gotten ourselves into, and the constant escape can become obsessive. Can you tell how suggestive this one is of a life out of balance?

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_03] And number 10, you lose your system for planning and keeping organized. This one is so ironic. When you need to be the most organized to accomplish all you've gotten yourself into, you simply cannot. Too much to process, not enough mental energy to do it. That's it. Like I said before, it can be incredibly difficult to stop yourself from going overboard when you've filled your plate too full, when you've taken on more than you can mentally and physically handle. But here's the catch.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_03] The positive and the somewhat negative light I've shed, if you can recognize the symptoms of an overscheduled life, something refreshing happens. A light bulb goes off. You recognize, then take a step back and smile. Smile because you've caught yourself. This time, you've got this. So go ahead, refine and refocus. And remember that the road to a simpler life is a journey. You can do this.

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[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_03] Thank you to Amy. Number one was about thoughts being in constant disarray. I think it's possible to live an entire life like this, never even realizing that things could be different. Only when we slow down, way down, can we see what it's like to live in a world where we control our thoughts instead of the other way around. And I think it's really important to get a glimpse of both sides to know what each feels like,

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_03] so we can tell when we're in one mode or the other. Journaling and meditation are the best tools I know to work on that skill. And I also found the home and workspace mess thing to be very true in my own life. If my surroundings are cluttered, I really feel like my brain then is even more cluttered. And that's one of the reasons that minimalism and decluttering is a huge part of this show, probably always will be. It's hard to argue with the idea that physical or even digital clutter

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_03] does impact our mental well-being to an extent. And cleaning it up can be cathartic and even freeing. But lots of good notes in this one, so thank you to Amy for the post. I hope you're having a great morning or afternoon or evening whenever you're listening to this. And I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits. How do you try to do this?

[00:10:06] Okay. Thank you.