Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. Have you ever bitten off more than you can chew and

suddenly realize you're drowning in work? Today, we're going to talk about an action plan that you can

follow when it may be time to declare a to-do list bankruptcy. As a kid, I was totally charmed by old episodes of I Love Lucy.

There's this one classic clip in which she's working in a chocolate factory.

Her job is to grab and box the candies as they come down the conveyor.

Of course, something goes awry and the candies start flying at her faster than she can manage.

Not wanting to seem incapable,

she starts popping those candies into her mouth, down her shirt, and hilarity ensues.

It's such a perfect metaphor for how we can experience work sometimes. We're high achieving,

ambitious, striving people who want to seem like we can handle all the candy, no matter how fast it comes

at us. A colleague of mine recently asked if declaring a to-do list bankruptcy was a thing.

I told him I was stealing that pearl for today's episode, because sometimes we all need to give

ourselves permission to hit that emergency button on the conveyor of life. Having limits is human. Let's talk

about what you can do when you realize yours have been pierced, that your list of projects, goals,

tasks, objectives has just overwhelmed you, and you need a minute. First, start by asking for help.

Too commonly, we associate asking for help with revealing

a personal weakness. But if you watch that Lucy clip, you'll see that the candy is just flying

at her at a pace that no human could manage. Chomping those chocolates may be the right choice when the

goal is comedy. But had this been a real-life situation, the strategic

choice would have been to ask someone to shut down the conveyor so she could just catch her

breath and start again. If your to-do or to achieve list is feeling overwhelming right now,

recognize a long list is just a long list. It is not a symbol of your personal failure.

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