Stop Overwhelm with the Sticky Note Technique

You’ve created your Vision. You know where you want to go. But then Monday morning hits, and the "Cloud Thoughts" start swirling. You feel overwhelmed, stuck, and unsure of which way to turn.

​In The Wellness Vortex Habit Change Model, we master Non-Negotiable Habit #6: I manage my time. To do this effectively, we need a bridge between our big dreams and our daily actions.

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The Library of Your Mind (Vision)

​Imagine walking into a massive library. If all the books were thrown in a pile on the floor, you’d never find what you need. That is what overwhelm feels like.

• ​The Aisles are your Life Areas (Finances, Health, Business, Family). (Today's theme)
• ​The Books are your individual tasks or thoughts. Stay put for the Sprint Technique.

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The Sticky Note Technique is how we put the books back on the shelves so you can finally breathe.

​Step 1: Preparation (Keep it Simple)

​Don't let "perfect" be the enemy of "done." Grab a pack of small sticky notes and a notebook. Use one page in your notebook for each "Aisle" (Area) of your life.

​Note: Don't overcomplicate with colors if it causes procrastination. Just start.

​Step 2: The Brain Dump (One Action, One Note)

​Write down every single thought, task, or "to-do" currently taking up space in your head.

• ​Rule: One item per sticky note.
• ​Process: Place the notes on their corresponding "Aisle" pages in your notebook.
• ​The Result: This process is incredibly cleansing. Moving "Cloud Thoughts" from your head onto paper provides immediate emotional hygiene and relief.

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Step 3: Prioritize the "Needle-Movers"

​Now, look at your pages. Ask yourself: “Which one is the most urgent and most important?”

Move that specific sticky note to the top of your Work in Progress page. This is your Priority #1.

Next: Transition to the Sprint

​Once you have your most important sticky note identified, it’s time for the next step of the process: The Sprint Technique. You take that one note, put it on your calendar, and attack it with laser focus.

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Ready to Build Your Map?

• ​Missed the Vision Board? Start with your Vision Board here
• ​Ready for the final step? Learn the Sprint Technique here

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Stop waiting for the overwhelm to fade. Generate your own clarity!

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To your total life transformation,

​Nadya

Accountability Wellness Coach 

Video Transcript

Vision board has lots of different areas, correct? And in those different areas, you want to reach certain things. You want to be somewhere almost like measurable goals. You know, smart goals that they call them measurable, achievable, attainable, certain times stated by you. And the thing is like, you know, five years ago, I was sitting thinking about my entire life. So here I am on my own now, finances, the business, the children, the personal health, budgeting, every single area of life needed to be taken care of.

Guess how I felt. And this thing came to my mind. It's called the sticking outs. What I did, speaking of brain is like organization. Everything has to be in certain, like you will love it. It's like a library. Imagine you walk into the library and each aisle is area of your life. Each book is a sticking out. And sticking out only needs to say one thing, whether it's your idea, whether it's your thought, whether it's something I don't need to forget, whether it's like, ooh, there is this thing, just one per sticking out.

That's why my sticking outs, if you can see next to my fingers, they're tiny. So what I did, literally, it was the same notebook y'all. I'm still using it, so it's been five years. If I need to get rid of my overwhelm, I open it again. This is my recent, I think. So what you do is open fresh pages. And you can use one page per area of life or split it in half. For me, I think I did several, like per spread, several areas. And so if you split it in half, one area will be here.

Take sticking outs. I still use. Five years later, I guess what I have on my desk. Just never know. I write it and I put it here. Then take time. Anything that comes to your mind. Anything. Don't think too much. This is a brain dump. You heard the term, right? I'm not cursing here. Brain dump. Everything you can think of. Literally, for me, I was like, oh my gosh, now I have to be in charge of my own life. Life insurance. Wheel. Budget. Oh my gosh. Grocery budget. Bills.

Car. There was so much stuff. I didn't know, like, what? Sticking out. I said, how many things? About seven. Seven sticking outs. Anything you can think of per that area. So write down all this. Not write down. Put the sticking outs of all this area. Some people do like squares just written down. Like I didn't run out of sticking outs here. Once you've done it. Then the next thing with sticky notes is prioritization. Second language, I can't pronounce it. Prioritizing.

What does that mean? Have you heard the priorities quite quadrant? By unzined. Priorities quadrant. Okay. The main concept to you deciding what's urgent. What's not urgent. What's what's what's important. What's not important. So in sticking out similar way, if you see sticking out. Oh my gosh, I need to pay the bill. Like that was for me electricity bill. I don't know when my billing is priorities. It goes on the top. So if you know, you have to take care with right away.

Maybe you need to sign up for a gym. Because that's exercises on your plan. It goes on the very top. So what I literally did. When I was so overwhelmed, I looked at every. Every area of my life. And I just picked which are the sticky notes that need to be on the very top. And then all the rest go a little bit lower. There's no perfection here. Progress is the most important, even if it's just half percent of half percent. And then actually every week I will sit down and I'm like, okay, what can I take care of this week? So that's your prioritization. You have to look at it like you, I say in general, all of us. I just did this one again, just like couple of weeks ago. Second tool. Guess what second tool the sprint technique allows. You know, this is the most important, most urgent. The sticking out on the top. For me, what I needed to figure out how much I spend and don't need to spend and how much I make and need to make more or less. It was the budgeting.

Personal budget, business budget. And I want you to go profit first technique. For me, I said, okay, no idea. That's like it's ongoing similar to exercise. It's ongoing. And I said, all right, every, for me, it was every Monday, 6 p.m. I still remember up to this day, every Monday, 6 p.m. Give me 10 minutes. 10 minutes is short enough that you're going to say no brainer. I can do it. I know you're thinking 10 minutes is not enough. Great. You have to start with something that is not enough because you can show up in the Tiny Habits book. He talks about master and showing up. Then you can make it 30. But the sprint is in the way that you can get in, get out. So I took the sticking out and it becomes my to do on my to do list. My to do was actually on my cell phone. Does that make sense? Again, this is like the urgent, the most prior. If you're urgent, we have team up right now. My, well, it's not my urgent, but it's priority.