Better than refrigerator list? Antidotes for Crazy Busy Gemmelsmerch

Have you found one or two ways to cope better with your Crazy Busy life?  If so, you should have an extra couple minutes to add a comment to this posting below! 

[If you can, join us online Oct 22 2pm Eastern - click for more info, free registration.]
We're looking for very specific steps that REALLY work for YOU and that might work for some of your colleagues or friends. Something many of us could do within the next week.

For some people, posting a new list of goals on the refrigerator really works.  But for others - like me - posting the list is yet another way of fooling ourselves into believing we've solved the problem before we take the first real step! The newest list soon gets lost among the others.

So, in a comment below, please describe one or two of your favorites that REALLY work for you. Something beyond a refrigerator list.  Something you've gotten from Hallowell's book CrazyBusy: overstretched, overbooked, and about to snap! : strategies for handling your fast-paced life or brief interview of Hallowell about Crazy Busy, elsewhere.   

For a good prompt, see "Identify and control the sources of gemmelsmerch in your environment.  Gemmelsmerch, the force that distracts a person from what he or she wants or ought to be doing, is as pervasive and powerful as gravity."  This is Item #6,  which includes over 20 suggestions, in Hallowell's Chapter 28  "Ten Key Principles to Managing Modern Life."  

Here's another example excerpted from Hallowell's blog "Tips for the Crazy Busy":

excerpt copied Oct 21, 2010:
 "...put...  computer on a table behind her.  Now, in order to do email, she has to swivel around in her chair.  This means that she much [sic] make a conscious decision to do so, instead of just mindlessly clicking on her email."
Thanks,
Steve

You don't have time for this! Or anything else! ...but...

As long as you're here, please add your own examples of how the "overload" is affecting your life. ... and which kinds of overload?
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VARIETY OF OVERLOADS:
-Message Overload (How many kinds of messages do you check daily? hourly?)
-Information Overload
-Options Overload (Too many attractive, viable choices!)
-Expectations Overload (Gilbert's Law: "Expectations grow faster than resources.")
-"I can't keep up with my _______" Overload (You fill in the blank)
...More.... ????

An Indicator that Overload is an issue - from Wikipedia

Overload may refer to:

• Overload (Swedish band)
• Overload (Pakistani band)
• Overload (CSI episode), an episode from the second season of the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Overload (Transformers), fictional character
• Overload (Chinese rock band)
• Overload (Overload album)
• Overload (Anthem album)
• Overload (Harem Scarem album)
• Overload (Voodoo and Serano song), a dance song by Voodoo and Serano
• Overload (Sugababes song), a pop song by the UK girl group Sugababes
• "Overload", a song by Raven from their 1987 album Life's a Bitch
• "The Overload", a song by Talking Heads from their 1980 album Remain in Light
• Overload (novel), a novel by Arthur Hailey
• Overload (journal)
• Overloading (chess)
• Iron overload disorder
• Sensory overload

Symptoms of Overload

"I have to take a day off and stay home tomorrow. I really need to get some work done."

3 Helpful Steps

Mark Milliron describes several important sources of our "Overload" and suggests 3 useful, practical steps:
1. Turn off the automatic download function in your e-mail program.
2. Choose the least distracting notifications (if any at all)— for your hand-held multi-function cell phone + device
3. If you bring your laptop to a meeting, decide in advance HOW and WHY you will use it and don't let yourself be distracted into using it for other purposes.

See: "Pavlovian Problems" at http://catalyticconversations.blogspot.com/

"Surrounded by pigeons?" - Indicators, Dashboards for THE OVERLOAD

[Suggested by Rebecca Kurtz, the TLT Group, 11-1-2005]

Imagine a sequence of pictures as described below. Pick the one that best reflects your current situation or state of mind. This is your personal Overload Indicator.

Would it be a good idea for each of us to display our own symbol so that others would know how we were coping with the Overload?
How often should we update these displays? Weekly? Hourly? Continuously?

OVERLOAD INDICATORS - CHOOSE ONE

- Busily, happily, walking down the street; cheerfully and confidently taking a break out-of-doors; probably on the way to get back to work at a job you love, where you are making frequent, much-appreciated contributions ...

- Busily walking by a tall building - not noticing others standing on window ledges high above, others climbing out of windows onto the ledges, ...

- Standing on the ground, looking up at a tall building, perhaps about to enter the main door ...

- Standing in a room near the top floor of a tall building ...

- Standing in a room, next to the window, poised to climb out the window and onto the ledge ...

- Standing on a window ledge, surrounded by pigeons, near the top of a tall building ...

- Someone talking you down, back from the ledge ...

- Leaping off that ledge ...

- Falling past several floors "So far so good!" - but looking for a parachute ...

- Splat [Can you call for a "do over"!?]

Solutions? Useful advice? Resources?

[When I get a little more time - heh, heh - I'll add a link here to another blog where we can collect solutions - or, at least, helpful advice!]