How to Get Things Done When You're Overwhelmed
Especially when your brain completely shuts down
We’ve all been there. The stars finally align. You actually have some energy, motivation, and time to tackle the tasks that have been hanging over your head. You sit down to start… and suddenly, your brain goes blank.
You feel that familiar pressure rising. You try to do something, anything, but it's not the urgent thing you actually needed to get done. Maybe you bounce from tab to tab. Maybe you scroll. Maybe you cry.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. This kind of shutdown often happens when we’re overwhelmed, especially if you’re someone navigating executive dysfunction, chronic stress, illness, grief, or burnout. Below are a few gentle, step-by-step ways to help your brain come back online and help you move forward with less struggle.
Pause before you push
This may feel counterintuitive. You finally have time, so shouldn’t you use it?
But when you’re overwhelmed, your body often moves into a stress state. That’s the sympathetic nervous system in action, also known as the fight, flight, freeze response. When this system is activated, the part of your brain responsible for planning and organizing (the frontal cortex) gets less access to resources. In short, your brain can’t “do the thing” until it feels safe.
Try this:
Start with something simple to calm your nervous system. Breathing techniques are one of the fastest ways to shift out of that shutdown mode. Slow your breathing and focus on extending your exhale — even a few breaths can help your brain and body reconnect.
Get the tasks out of your head
Once you’re more grounded, the next step is to offload what’s swirling around in your brain.
Try this:
Use sticky notes, a notes app, voice-to-text — whatever helps you quickly jot down tasks that are making you feel stuck or behind. Don’t worry about making them pretty or perfect. Just get them out of your head and onto paper.
This step helps reduce the mental clutter and gives you something to visually organize in the next step.
Pick one realistic priority
Now that you can see the tasks, choose one — just one — to focus on right now.
Try this:
Ask yourself:
What’s the most urgent or time-sensitive?
What would help me feel more settled if I got it done?
What task is small enough to actually start today?
Try to be kind to your future self here. It’s easy to overload the list out of fear that pain, fatigue, or grief will knock you off track. But setting ten goals and completing none only feeds the anxiety spiral. Picking one realistic task and completing it builds trust with yourself.
If you have more energy after that, great — go back to the list. But one is enough.
Give yourself some credit
At the end of this work window, you might not have done everything on the list. But you did the one thing that mattered most today. And that counts.
Everything beyond that? It’s a bonus.
We tend to discount small progress, especially when we live with systems, bodies, or minds that don’t always cooperate. But noticing what did happen — and offering yourself real acknowledgment — helps build momentum over time.
Getting things done when you're overwhelmed isn't about willpower. It's about working with your nervous system, lowering the pressure, and setting kind, doable expectations. Whether you're navigating executive dysfunction, chronic illness, burnout, or grief — these tools are here to support you.
You don’t need to fix everything today. One step is still forward.
