Overwhelmed? Take an Audit of Your Brain’s Real Estate
A 10-minute exercise that can help you get a handle on everything that’s happening in your life
There’s a drawing by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck that I think about often. A cross-section of a woman’s brain reveals partitions containing everything from thoughts about the climate disaster and work deadlines to what to have for lunch and the prospect of kangaroos going extinct.
It’s funny because it’s true: Our brains comprise so much, from the utterly inconsequential to the terrifyingly existential, all day every day.
But when life feels overwhelming — and truly, when does it not?—I’ve noticed that my brain’s system for allocating real estate can go a little haywire. I will start to make space for way too many things, like shoving in more mediocre condos into an already too-dense neighborhood. When you’re overwhelmed, your brain can tell you the story that the way to get out of it is by doing more. When I sense myself doing this, I know it’s time for an audit.
The audit works like this: In life there are generally three categories. There are things you simply have to do, such as work, take care of your children, file your taxes, go to your annual physical etc. Then there are things you would like to do, like creative projects, personal development exercises, DIY projects, working on your garden, volunteering etc. Finally, there are things you need to do to stay somewhat sane, such as exercise, eat healthy, go to therapy, have some time to play video games on the weekend, or whatever your preferred methods are. The thing these things all share in common? They require some of your time.
You start the audit by making three columns. In the first column, write your “Have Tos.” This only works if you are really rigid here about what constitutes a have to. A helpful metric: If I stopped doing this thing, I would not be able to pay my bills, my physical health would be threatened, I would be in legal trouble, or I would lose a great deal of money. So no, going to the gym six days a week or re-decorating your living rom does not count as a have to.
The second column can be tricky. These are things that you ostensibly want to be doing, the “Want Tos.” In my own life, this column can become really full when I’m overwhelmed. That’s because instead of subtracting, I add—perhaps to prove to myself that I’m thriving and progressing towards my goals despite the outer chaos I have no control over. Learning French, embarking on a six-week acupuncture regime, planning a big friend reunion, a new writing project. The things that end up here often reflect who we want to be in the future, but they can ask a lot of us in the present.
The third column hopefully should be the easiest to form. These are the things that unequivocally give you energy, even when you’re short on time—the “Need Tos.” Think basic and try to only list the things that never feel like a chore. Maybe it’s an after-dinner walk rather than the gym. A ritual of watering your plants or pottering round the garden for 15 minutes each morning. A meditation practice. A standing appointment to watch your favorite trash TV once a week with take-out. Whatever it is, it should not be a drain, and should enable you to deal with the daily have tos in your life.
Try and be extremely granular about your columns. If you think about it during your day, it belongs on there somewhere—regardless of how minute or inconsequential it seems. (One of mine is “text people back,” something I consistently struggle with.) Trust your brain when it comes up with something, and even if you don’t know which column it belongs in at first, write it down anyway. It will become clear as you progress.
Once you have your three columns, it’s time to edit. There are four options: keep it as is, give it a smaller box, put it into storage, or get rid of it. Provided you’ve been honest about column one, most of your edits will happen in columns two and three. Are you trying to crush a demanding new 30 day fitness challenge while in the midst of a hellish work project? Maybe give the fitness a smaller box by downsizing to a three day a week routine. Are you hosting elaborate dinner parties once a month despite having no time to catch up with friends one-on-one, in a less demanding way? Maybe cut the ostentatious entertaining in favor of walks with friends. Are you embarking on a new creative writing project while also in the midst of finding and moving to a new apartment? Perhaps put the new project into storage to revisit in six week’s time.
When unsure, a good question to ask yourself is: Is this activity draining me, or giving to me? If it’s the former, consider cutting, pausing, or downsizing. If it’s the latter, find a way to prioritize. In the example of texting back friends, I resolved to write a boiler plate message about how I’m going through a rough time, making me slow to respond, but I hope to reconnect soon. In that way, I’ve down-sized the real-estate required by creating a stock reply.
It’s nice, but not essential, to go through this list with a friend or partner who has your best interests in mind. They might help you see gaps or loopholes where you can, perhaps, give yourself a bit of a break by adjusting the amount of real estate something gets. They may also mirror back to you the things that seem to give you a bit of energy or joy, such as, “whenever you return from the pool/yoga class/gym, you seem brighter and calmer.” Or they may tell you where you are being too demanding on yourself, such as, “your new creative idea sounds like a great idea, but there’s no reason it can’t wait a month until your performance review is done.” Listen to that feedback.
The key thing about this exercise is that you have to be willing to edit—and crucially, cut things. The very fact you are making the list is a sign that something is not working; you, my friend, are overwhelmed. By laying it all down on paper, it allows you to see what your brain is doing up there all day. There are things you have to do, things you want to do, and things you need to do. But you don’t have to do them all, all of the time, all at once.
