Overwhelmed

It's been one of those weeks and it's only Tuesday.  Yesterday was one of those days that when I got home from work I told Shawn that I just wanted to cry.  He looked at me and said "Go ahead and cry" but he face looked more like "Please don't cry, I won't know what to do if you cry!" Today was one of those days that I said to Laura, let's just run away.  She asked where I wanted to go and I said, I don't care, anywhere but here.  I'd be satisfied with Park City or Logan. (They are other cities in the state, I don't think that really classifies as running away.)  Ugh.  I feel so overwhelmed at work, so behind.  And the behindness is overwhelming the overwhelming feeling.  And last week I had a week that was a perfect catch up week.  Until three urgent project got dropped on my desk, and then one of the behind projects came to a head, and I didn't get anything else done.  So, this week I'm even MORE behind, more guilt for being behind and I just want to stop and run away.  I just want to ignore all the behind projects and start completely fresh.

So, I stopped today and yesterday.  I surveyed my office and got that overwhelmed feeling, but I decided to meet it head on.  Instead of plopping non-urgent tasks and random papers in piles around my office I confronted those piles.  I went through all of those papers and I threw most of them in the recycling bin.  I organized the others and I cleaned off my desk.  And I started to feel a sense of ease.  A sense that I can indeed get caught up.  And tonight before I left work I sat down with my "to do" stack and I went through every item, and I created a To Do List.  And for the first time in weeks I feel like all that work is manageable.  I can do it.  And what's more, I'm kind of excited to do it.  I love to do lists, I love crossing off items.  Even though it's already been a long week I'm kind of looking forward to tomorrow and walking into my clean, organized office with my to do list.