MANAGING TIME BY BEING OVERWHELMED
“get so busy that people stop asking. then prioritize ruthlessly.”
The Lesson
The illusion: more tasks require more energy until you hit a wall. The secret: beyond that wall, things get EASIER. Scott ran a full-time job, plus cartooning, plus writing books, plus a licensing business. And it worked. Why? (1) When you're visibly overwhelmed, people stop asking you for things. They know you can't deliver, so they don't follow up. (2) With 50 tasks, you become brutal about priorities. You can only do 7, so you pick the 7 that matter. (3) You discover that 90% of what you 'could have' done wasn't important anyway. The trick: either become genuinely overwhelmed with important work, or create the impression that you are.
Real-World Example
A founder is drowning in requests. Investors want updates, customers want features, team wants decisions. Wrong approach: try to satisfy everyone. Right approach: Become visibly overwhelmed with the RIGHT things. Now when you don't respond to low-priority requests, people understand. Your 'no' is implicit. You focus only on what moves the needle. The overwhelm becomes a filter.
Watch Scott explain this lesson
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