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We can master the feeling of information-overload with conscious choices. Parents raise their children using the technique of making choices. Somehow we forget this important tool as we get older. We get ourselves into spaces of anxiety and over-creation simply because we are not choosing where we are putting our attention.

If you want to know where your attention is, close your eyes and watch where your mind goes. It will most likely go to something you still have to complete. The unfinished stuff keeps us distracted and unfocused. In today’s world so much is competing for our attention (in addition to the incompletes) that we move into reactive mode as it seems more expedient than making conscious choices.

1. cell phone rings – we jump and grab it

2. text message comes in and we immediately drop what we are doing to answer

3. new email comes in and we automatically open it often unaware of what we are doing

4. something goes wrong – we react and blame vs. take action to resolve it

We believe and tell ourselves:

We have to look at and read everything.

We need to be available to everyone all the time.

We have to attend every meeting.

We need to meet or talk about everything vs. try and get answers in writing.

We will miss something if we don’t say yes to everything.

Everything needs to be done now – it’s all urgent.

Our expectations of ourselves and others are off the charts, and, we keep moving faster to keep up.

We forget that we can:

Let the phone go to voice mail and check it later.

Say no to meetings and events that do not serve us.

Choose the industry articles that are a must-read and let the rest go.

Read email 1-3 times a day, top to bottom; rather than all day long.

Slow down to one at a time.

Schedule uninterruptable time for ourselves daily

Commit only to what we know we can complete.

Work with focus doing one thing at a time with full attention.

Unsubscribe from emails that we keep deleting and don’t read.

Unhook from the interruptions by turning off email notifications, Twitter feed, Facebook alert messages etc.

Overwhelm is an add-on. It doesn’t exist on its own. I listen to clients comment as soon as they open email how many emails are in their in-box. I honestly never look to see how many emails are in my in-box. I just open the first one and read one email at a time until…Voila…the box is empty. The habit of checking to see how many emails I have would be defeating and it keeps me from starting. Why look? Just open and read them.

There is more than enough to do. And yet, it is possible to have hundreds of things to do and not feel any overwhelm. The key is staying present and having a system that tracks the actions so they are monitored and completed on time.

If we make ourselves available 24/7 (which seems to be the case for many) then there is no space during the day to complete actions that need our attention.

For me the biggest stress factor we create for ourselves is not doing what we say we will do and then either feeling guilty about it, or even worse, not consciously remembering we even agreed to do it.

So keep your agreements in writing. Complete as you go and track what is still in process so that it will get completed. And let go of those things you are never going to do.

Having peace of mind is about consciously choosing where you will put your attention in any given moment, what you will complete or not complete, and having concrete boundaries to keep you from over-committing.

It’s all in the choosing and we are the ones who must stay conscious with our focus and our choices.

Martha Ringer lives and teaches Completing as a way of living. Her two-day coaching sessions are life changing. Clients experience the freedom that comes when they know how to work, how to stay on top of the volume of “in” and how to effortlessly move things to completion. Order her recent book, Complete.Done.Finished, the joy of doing, the freedom when done, available on her website www.martharinger.com