Stop Letting Overwhelm Stall Your Solo Business
How to take action.
You’ve got big plans for your business. Maybe you want to launch a new service, update your website, or finally tackle your to-do list.
You sit down at your desk. But instead of moving forward, you find yourself spinning in circles: researching, planning, tweaking, second-guessing. Over and over. The overwhelm creeps in, and you’re constantly stuck.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone. I’ve been there too. I'm particularly good at making project plans, and then I don't make any real progress on putting those plans into action.
There are a few things I've found particularly effective when I'm overwhelmed. Here are some ways to break out of that cycle.
Overwhelm has a real business cost
Overwhelm isn’t just stressful — it’s expensive.
All the time you spend in "analysis mode" costs you time, focus, and sometimes money.
Want to do the math? Take the amount you earn per hour, on average. Let's say you charge clients $100/hour.
Now, let's say you spend 10 hours overthinking your website. That's $1,000 of your time wasted. Time you could have spent doing something more productive.
Plus, your overthinking is an opportunity cost. A new website might bring you new clients, so every day that your old website stays up, you may lose a potential client who never saw your improved site.
Overwhelmed can sometimes feel busy. If you're like me, you set up project plans, spreadsheets, and automation tasks. But really, you're just moving things around the periphery, rather than moving the needle in your business.
And the longer you wait to take action, the guiltier you might feel about not "doing enough."
The trap of perfectionism
Perfectionism and overwhelm often go hand in hand.
You tell yourself you’ll start after you learn a little more, when your process is smoother, or once everything is “ready.” The irony is that perfectionism often disguises itself as productivity. You feel like you’re working on "just one more thing," but in reality, you’re delaying progress.
That was me creating video content. I wanted polished videos with the perfect script, smooth transitions, and catchy visuals. I kept searching for the right video editing software, promising that I would improve my process and that video editing would get easier. But every time I sat down, I was frustrated with the output, thinking it wasn't perfect enough. I have a whole folder full of videos that I never posted anywhere.
Perfection never arrived. And I was too overwhelmed by the video creation process. When you’re a solo business owner, chasing perfection will quickly lead to overwhelm and burnout.
Done really is better than perfect, trust me. No one will notice that it isn't perfect except you, and you need to let that go.
Or, if perfection truly gets in the way, you need to ask yourself: Is this really the right thing for my business? For me, that meant giving up on video content (at least for now). What I want to do is too far away from what I'm capable of doing with the time and energy I have. Even less-than-perfect videos aren't what I have in mind. I'd rather refocus my energy on other projects that can make a difference in my business.
By letting go of video content, I've reduced the overwhelm (at least, in one area of my business!)
Anna Burgess Yang
5 practical strategies to reduce overwhelm
Not sure what to work on next? Here are a few ways to break big projects into more manageable work.
1. Set 90-day goals
I used to think I had to plan an entire year as a solopreneur, but that was always a mistake. Instead, figure out what you want to get done in the next 90 days. Or, if it's a really big project, what is a smaller piece you can get done in a shorter timeframe?
If you have a goal to "update my website," start with something small, like updating your "About Me" page.
Pro Tip: I keep a list of potential quarterly projects in Notion [affiliate link]. However, I don't set any due dates on them until the current quarter. Then I choose a few to focus on, but still have the "big picture" on my radar. I add to this list all the time.
2. Time block your work.
Set aside a specific amount of time to work on tasks or projects. Maybe it's a recurring amount of time each week (like to knock out your to-do list) or maybe it's a large chunk of time on a Friday afternoon. Whatever you choose, tell yourself, I'm going to get X thing done in Y amount of time.
Overwhelm can happen when you think you have an unlimited amount of time to work on something. If you set a "container" of time (through time blocking), you'll be forced to work more efficiently.
3. Limit your options
Time blocking is one way to limit your work, but another is to limit what you can "see."
Got an overwhelming list of to-dos? Limit your list to those that are most important or time-sensitive.
I keep loooong lists in Trello of everything I want to work on. But then when I start a project, I create a new List or Board in Trello. That way, I'm not looking at everything — I'm only looking at the current project.
For example, I store potential blog post ideas in Trello. I have a list called "Up Next" and I'll move two or three to that List at a time. When I go to write a blog post, I'm not getting lost in the overwhelm of everything I could write. I've already made my selections for the upcoming weeks and I can focus on those.
Of course, that means I have to set aside time to plan upcoming content and choose topics from my bigger list, but that is something I fit into a specific container of time.
4. Launch before you're ready
Treat every new offer, product, or system as a beta version. Launch small, learn fast, and improve the thing you made over time.
That website you want to redesign? Launch it as soon as you have something viable. You can always add to it later.
Of course, that also might mean you launch something and it doesn't go as planned. I've launched things that I thought would be interesting to my audience, only to see very few signups/downloads. But that's a problem with my information-gathering process or marketing, not the product itself. I can learn from that.
You can also set up a system to review and improve your products, landing pages, and messaging. I try to do this once a year for the (many!) digital products I offer. Sometimes they're fine. Sometimes they're outdated and could use a refresh. I tweak and re-launch.
5. Use templates and frameworks
Why reinvent the wheel? If someone in your business has already created checklists, email templates, social media calendars, etc. — use those! You can reduce decision fatigue and free up your creative energy.
If "Update my website" is on your list, see if you can find a checklist of things to consider. Then break the project down into smaller pieces and use time-blocking to get the work done.
I've also relied on my own templates to make things easier. When I launch a new digital product, I have a specific checklist I follow in Trello and templates in Canva to create social media graphics and other assets.
Anna Burgess Yang
⚙️ Tools to help you focus
Have trouble staying focused while you work? Here are some things that can help.
- Focus Friend: A delightful app that blocks you from using other apps for a period of time
- Brick: A physical device that does not allow you to access apps while your phone is in "brick" mode
- Cube Timer: I love this thing to quickly set a specific amount of time I want to work (like 10 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.)
- Ugmonk: Prefer analog? I love the Ugmonk analog system for keeping track of my daily tasks
- Flow Club: Virtual co-working, if you work better with accountability
Your business grows when you do
Every solo business owner feels overwhelmed at some point. We have to wear "all the hats." And to grow, we usually have to do something different — and sometimes, that means stretching into new things outside of our skillset.
You're not failing if you feel stuck and overwhelmed. You're learning your limits and bottlenecks. But you've got to figure out how to work through the overwhelm, or you can't grow as a business owner. And, truly, that means managing overwhelm and finding ways to reduce it.
The best advice I have is to think of progress in small increments. When we see a giant pile of things to do, it feels impossible to get to the other side.
You don't need the perfect plan to accomplish something. You just need to start taking action. The sooner you move — even with teeny, tiny steps — the sooner you can push past overwhelm and get stuff done.
Need to review the health of your business?
Check out my free quarterly planning checklist.
