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I think we’ve all suffered from the panic of feeling like you have too many balls in the air, like everything you have to do is a tidal wave on the edge of crashing over you, like you’re waiting for the Damocles sword of overwhelm. That’s exactly where I was right before my holiday, about to explode with anxiety.

 

Right now, I’m in a better place (we’ll see how long that lasts). So whilst I have the power of a clear mind I thought I’d share some top tips for dealing with feeling overwhelmed by work and life when you don’t have the opportunity to jet off for a week, because even though I would love for that to be the solution, it’s so rarely on the cards.

  1. Step away – the first thing to do when everything feels like it’s too much is to take a five-minute breather. Go for a walk. Make a cup of tea. Just breathe. You need to give yourself space to think and to deal with the mountain ahead of you. Just sitting, looking at it (whatever it may be), and freaking out never solved anything. No matter how busy you are, you have five minutes to get some fresh air. I promise.
  2. Write everything down – sometimes when you’re feeling overwhelmed trying to hold everything in your tiny human mind at once just makes it harder. So write everything down. Write down everything you have to do. Write down everything you’re feeling. Write down everything you’re worrying about. Just get it down on the page and out of your head to give you the mental desk space to work out a plan.
  3. Stop trying to multitask – I know we’re told that multitasking is the most productive thing to do – kill two birds with one (time) stone, right? Well, when you’re feeling overwhelmed trying to do all of the things at once, can mean that you end up finishing none of the things and feeling even more stressed out. Do one thing at once, then cross it off your list. As you start to reduce the number of balls you’re mentally juggling you’ll start to calm back down.
  4. Chop it up – if a task just feels insurmountable, chop it up, turn it into the smallest chunks of work you can then deal with those one by one. Pro tip, if you’re chunking your work into time boxes, say 10-minute tasks, build in some buffer time so if you overrun you still have time.
  5. Clear your workspace – the cliche of a tidy desk meaning a tidy mind is one that’s often true in my experience. If all else fails clear your desk and have a fresh start, for no other reason than you’ll have done something productive to get the ball rolling.
  6. Make yourself uninterruptable – turn off your phone, close your emails, mute all of your notifications and let yourself focus on the tasks at hand. The fewer things you have to worry about the easier it is to get your work done. All of those many important messages (and spam shopping offers that GDPR hasn’t cleared out) will still be there when you’re finished.
  7. Try the one day rule – pretend you only have one day to get everything done (don’t panic). Use that hard deadline to be ruthless, only do what you have to do and prioritise that tasks that have to be done first. You’ll be surprised at what you actually end up achieving, remember the last time you had a really hard deadline I bet you managed to get it done in the end right? Well, this is the same thing. This is actually what helped me about going on holiday, it meant I got everything I needed to done before I went, which I think was just about as great a feeling as eating gelato on the beach.

 

I hope at least some of these help in the short term. But remember you always have the power to say no, so if you’re feeling overwhelmed on the regular start to use that power more. Don’t take on more than you want to, and certainly no more than you can handle mentally.

 

Breathe deep.

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It’s that time of year again, where I go on holiday and try to forget the internet exists.

 

I’m going to be taking 2 weeks away from updating this blog, and probably about the same away from Instagram and Twitter. That’s probably going to hurt my “stats” but it’s going to do my mental health and just general well being a world of good, so it’s a risk I’m more than willing to take.

 

I’ve written about the importance of taking a “digital detox” or just stepping away from the screen for a while. But it’s something I’m increasingly aware of needing personally. I spend almost all of my waking hours attached to some kind of screen.

 

Last year when I went on holiday, my phone broke the first day we were out in Portugal, so I ended up taking an unplanned digital break.

 

I’m not going to lie, the first day was hard. I kept wanting to reach for my phone. It was an itch i couldn’t scratch.

 

But then, I started to forget all about it. I realised that I didn’t have to check my phone, or my email, or how many wordpress views I had constantly. I didn’t do any of those things for a week and nothing changed.

 

Doing a digital detox allows you to take a step back from that cycle and realise that you don’t need to be by your phone 24/7, as well as making you a more active participant in every conversation, every interaction, you have that day. So I can’t wait to use all of my senses to take in Greece.

 

I also know that by the end of the trip I’ll be ready to come back and make things for you again.

 

So, that’s all for now folks. I can’t wait to be surrounded by sun, sea, and sand, and to only pick up my phone when I need to google the best place to go for dinner.

 

See you in July!

 

If you get bored when I’m gone, here are a few top blog post picks you can get stuck into in the meantime:

  • My June Monthly Roundup has a whole load of great articles and videos to get stuck into
  • My Kanken Design Story has been having a big of a resurgence in popularity, so if you didn’t read it last year you might want to see what you missed out on
  • I shared The 3 Best Summer Salads I Know last year, and I still love them all so feast your eyes and your appetite
  • While we’re talking about screen breaks make sure you’ve read and are trying some of the tips in my How to Keep Your Eyes Fit and Healthy post to keep your peepers on top form
  • If you’re looking for a great beach read catch up with my Book Club
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This month’s roundup comes to you a little early (gasp) and so is a little shorter than normal (double gasp) because I’m going on holiday next week. But don’t worry there are still plenty of great reads in there from some of the usual places (the minds of Austin Kleon and Jocelyn K Glei to name a couple) and some sparkly new sources, so hopefully there’s something in there to catch your eye and get you reading and thinking afresh.

stop watch illustration

SHORT READS, IF YOU’VE ONLY GOT A FEW MINUTES:

Artists Need Pockets

Austin Kleon’s blog is one of my favourites and this short piece on why artists need pockets is a great demonstration of why. Austin manages to pack in some great artist anecdotes, a brief history of the politics of the pocket and some super interesting links out all in a 2 mind read.

The Women who Designed the Pattern for Modern Britain

This (mini) Guardian feature on Enid Marx, Minnie McLeish and Lucienne Day, who were a generation of revolutionary print creators, is pretty darn great. If you’ve never heard of them, if you live in the UK you’ve most certainly sat on their work.

 

Beginning Graphic Design: Color (video)

This video was linked on a great thread by Lauren Baldo about how she chooses her colour palettes for her illustrations and it was so helpful (in just 6 minutes) I had to share it all with you here.

Dentures illustration

LONG READS, IF YOU WANT SOMETHING TO GET YOUR TEETH STUCK INTO:

5 Brainstorming exercises for introverts

Inspired by Susan Cain’s research on the power of introverts and how solitude, like collaboration, is a crucial ingredient to creativity, Allison Press from IDEO asked her colleagues what strategies they use to incorporate solitude into the most extroverted of activities, brainstorming. As a fellow introvert I can personally attest to the power of the first two.

 

On Needing to Find Something to Worry About

Something a little more philosophical/psychological for this week’s first pick. I occasionally dip into The Book of Life’s blog posts when I’m in the mood for something self-help-y but not self-help-y if that makes sense. This piece about needing something to worry about really spoke to be a serial worrier and all round anxious bear. If you’re having an anxious day/week/year give it a read because it’s super calming, even if you enjoy nothing else but the steady cadence of the writing.

 

10 Book Cover Designers Discuss the Covers They Rejected and Why

You know I love book cover design, and harbour a not so well hidden desire to design book covers as a job. So when I saw this piece from Electric Literature where 10 incredible cover designers shared their design process and their rejected covers, I knew it was a must read. I was not disappointed.

 

Confessions of a Burnt Out Over-Achiever

Jocelyn’s intro to this article is way better than anything I could write so I’m just going to quote it and then leave you to read this mini saviour in your own time. “If I asked if you could continue working at the pace you currently work for the next 10 or even 20 years, what would you say? I think for most people, the standard response would be: “Hell no!” But what we do today, and what we do tomorrow, rapidly becomes the status quo. Until working in a way that is completely unsustainable starts to seem quite normal.”

 

Sketchnotes 101: The Basics of Visual Note-taking

If you enjoyed my piece last week on how and why I make my notes visual, this piece from Core77 taught me a lot of what I use and is a great follow on read. Plus the little sketches are really lovely.

WHO TO FOLLOW, IF YOU WANT TO SPRUCE UP YOUR INSTAGRAM FEED:

@moritzwienert

Moritz Wienert is another new smaller follow for me, but I love his modern minimal style. His combinations are bizarre and hilarious, so if you’re looking for something fresh go and check out his feed

 

@manjitthapp

I tend to try and feature smaller artists you might not already know about in this section, but this week I just want to talk about Manjit Thapp even though you probably all follow her already because she’s great. I’ve followed her for quite a while (4 years I think) and her work has truly come into its own. Her use of layers and texture in her illustrations now is just so good, but she’s never lost her signature style or colour palette, simply refined them. Honestly, I’m more than a little bit in love.

 

@ohkiistudio

I’m ending on another bigger fish in the form of Ohkiistudio aka Angela Mackay. All of Angela’s illustrations are wonderful but I particularly wanted to highlight her sketchbook scenes in place because they’ve really got me in the holiday mood recently because they really embody that idea of just getting out there and enjoying the colours of your surroundings.

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We’re pretty much halfway through the year (say what?!) so I thought it was about time I checked in my goals for the years and gave you a bit of an update, because you, dear readers, keep me accountable all 3 of you!

 

What did I set out to do?

  1. Read 25 books.
  2. Take a photo/video of some kind every day.
  3. Learn 10 new skills.
  4. Do 120 hours of exercise.
  5. Implement a better sleep schedule.

How am I doing?

 

I’ve actually taken down my big goals poster because it was making me feel worse rather than motivating me to be better. I want to be honest with you because you don’t always reach the goals you set, so here’s a little update on how I’m doing on those 5 things, and beyond:

 

  1. I’ve fallen behind on my reading, I’m only up to 9 books so far. But I’m committed to bringing this one back. There are some great autumn releases coming – Nobody Cares anyone? – so there are loads to get me reading again.
  2. This is the second time I’ve kind of given up on this one. I’m not sure what to do to make it stick. I have kept up with my journal though, and I really want to make sure I take plenty of photos of my upcoming holiday.
  3. This is one I’ve really stuck to in spirit rather than the letter of the goal, I’m at 3 new skills so far but I’ve been committed to learning and trying to push my work in new directions which I think is just as important.
  4. I’ve stopped recording this, but I’m still running 4 times a week and doing yoga most nights. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in and I’m exercising because I want to so I’ve stopped making it something I have to tick off.
  5. Yeah, that’s just not happening. It’s a bit more regular but I think I just have to work with how my body wants to roll at this stage.

 

This year my resolutions have fallen by the wayside because I’ve chosen to focus on shifting my lifestyle and my schedule more. So I might have failed at some of those specific goals but I’m getting so much more out of my days now.

 

I genuinely think I might be in the best place I’ve been for quite a while. I’m not making the most I ever have, but I am feeling good in myself which is arguably more important.

 

It’s okay to change your goals and your focus as long as you keep going.

 

For the second half of the year, I want to build on those changes. I want to keep focusing on feeling settled in my self and start to finally make the work I’ve been talking about and thinking about for the last 6 months.

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I take a lot of notes, at work, for blog posts, when I’m working on creative projects. I’m the kind of person who thinks best when they’re writing their ideas down, with pen (or more often pencil) and paper. I quite often get asked questions about my notebook, and how I put my notes together because I use a mixture of traditional notes and sketch notes.

 

Visual notes help you remember more of what you write down. Don’t just take my word for it, it’s science. It has been found that “visual stimulation is more effective than audio stimuli at achieving higher memory retention and recall,” and “specifically, it seems that the use of visual stimuli with the act of writing seems to elicit the best recall.” That means that notes with a visual element are the best kind of notes, not just because they’re the nicest to look at, but because they’re a great learning aid.

 

Now I know when someone says “visual notes” that can be kind of intimidating. It sounds like you have to be a great artist, or be able to do one of those live illustrated TED talks, which by the way are so cool. But it doesn’t.

 

For me, visual notes are about organising and enhancing the written elements of your notes in a way that helps create a picture in your mind that sticks.

 

There are a few key things I like to keep in mind when making visual notes, which I think will help anyone who wants to start giving them a try. I’d also recommend having a look at Core77’s sketch notes channel if this is something you’d like to know more about.

 

  1. It’s all about flow – I like to put chunks of text in containers to keep single ideas defined, then link those ideas together in some kind of flow that makes them easy to view and remember later. I tend to either go with your classic arrows and make a process out of the information if that suits or just group ideas together a bit like a mind map.
  2. Tell a story – as part of that flow, it’s always great to tell a story if you can because we’re much better at remembering stories than facts. You can either do that through linking up your information into a step by step style flow or quite often I just add in a little scene sketch using my favourite quick doodle friends bean people!
  3. Icons help you identify – I said before that you don’t need to be able to draw to make visual notes, the only real drawings I do (you can obviously go all out, but I stick with a strict effort-reward ratio) are icons that help me identify ideas. Those can be super basic diagrams or symbols, whatever works for you.
  4. Highlight the phrases that you want to stick – this is something that I think is super important in all note taking, and something you can add your own style too. You could play with lettering styles, colour, size, boxes, anything really. I tend to just underline and add some sparkle lines to my favourite quotes.
  5. Frame information and data – where the information you’re capturing fits into a framework nicely use it. That can mean showing numbers in super basic graphs, dividing pro/con lists into two sections, or detailing a process as a flow chart. Use your common sense, what’s the easiest way to view what you’re trying to say?

 

These kinds of notes can work in pretty much any situation where you would normally take notes, whether that’s when you’re reading, watching something, or in a meeting (they’re particularly good in client meetings because they do look a little more impressive than bullet points).