Between keeping up with your work, spending quality time with loved ones, and striving toward your personal goals, you have a lot going on. And this list doesn’t even include self-care, planning for upcoming travel, or leisure time.
A non-stop lifestyle with a never-ending to-do list can catch up with you. It’s normal if you feel overwhelmed by everything on your plate — especially when you’re taking on too much or struggling to balance everything in your life. At these moments, it may seem that you can never get ahead.
The feeling of not being able to clear your to-do is frustrating. Instead of working through your overwhelm without a plan, take a step back and consider how to get your life together in a reasonable, healthy way.
How to get your life together: A 10-step checklist
If you feel like your life has spun out, you’re not alone. Many people feel stressed by factors beyond their control or burnt out by the level of work they must do. A 2023 American Psychological Association report found that 24% of Americans rate their stress levels an 8 out of 10. And 2023 numbers from MIT Sloan showed that 42–53% of the population suffers from burnout.
If you identify with these statistics, your inner voice is likely saying, “I need to get my life together.” You know that stress and burnout lead to complications. Long-term stress can cause cardiovascular disease, and burnout spurs exhaustion, mental health issues, and even chronic illness.
Getting yourself together helps you reset, find a better work-life balance, and make sense of the enormous to-do list you have. In taking steps to reduce overwhelm, you regain control of your life and hopefully see a reduction in your stress and burnout symptoms.
While the best course of action whenever you feel your life is out of control is seeking the professional help of a therapist or life coach, there are steps you can take on your own, too. Start understanding the scope of your overwhelm and taking action to mitigate it with this simple step-by-step “how to get my life together checklist.”
1. Be honest with yourself
This point tops the “how to get my life together list” because you can’t improve your situation until you understand it. You have to take an honest — sometimes uncomfortable— look at your state.
If you work with a therapist or coach, explain how you’re feeling to them and unpack the root causes for your overwhelm. Some therapists and most coaches will help you craft an action plan and give you strategies for self-improvement.
You can perform an exploratory exercise on your own by journaling. Use a focused self-discovery prompt like, “What’s going on right now in my life?” to thoroughly flush out the idea. Write about your current professional and personal commitments and feelings about your physical, emotional, and financial wellness.
Sit with the words on the page and try to form insights based on your feelings, like, “I may have to put off going back to school because I have too much work.” Once you’re armed with these insightsinsighs, you can take meaningful steps toward changing your situation.
2. Set mid- and long-term goals
You may feel overwhelmed because you’re moving without much purpose or direction. It’s normal to get caught up in the whirlwind of daily life and go through the motions of work, personal commitments, and extracurriculars without understanding how your activities fit into a greater life plan. Setting mid- to long-term goal-setting can help provide clarity.
Think about where you’d like to be in five or 10 years. Once you have an idea of your ideal future, assess whether there are any current activities you could put on the back burner.
Perhaps trying to save for a down payment on a house right now is pushing your stress levels over the edge. You can take this goal off your to-do list for the time being and prioritize or set another one, like saving a certain amount of each paycheck with less direction. This could be the time to up your professional skills to get a better-paying job, allowing you to revisit the specific goal of buying a house when you’ve increased your earning potential.
Use a method that encourages realistic goal setting to set yourself up for success. The SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) system allows you to determine aims you can reasonably achieve in a certain period. Breaking those long-term dreams into short-term goals lets you take small steps toward personal development without trying to reinvent yourself overnight. And tracking progress toward these benchmarks during an overwhelming time can remind you how determined and resilient you are, boosting your self-esteem.
3. Identify toxic people in your life
Have you ever had a friend or partner who drains your energy? Toxic relationships are often time-consuming and stressful, leaving you feeling too tired to take care of the tasks on your to-do list or yourself.
Consider whether there’s a toxic relationship in your life you could let go of or set boundaries on. Common red flags include constant negativity, argumentativeness, and self-centeredness. If a partner is always picking a petty fight post work or a friend calls to vent at midnight a few too many times, you may want to take a step back from these relationships to focus on your needs.
4. Make a plan
You’ve identified the problems driving your stress and set goals, but you’re still asking, “How do I get my life together in a practical way?” One solution is to impose more structure on your days.
If you wake up at different times every day, work a few haphazard hours in the morning, and shuttle through errands until late, the lack of order in your life may be the root of your overwhelm. Without consistency, you’ll struggle to manage your time.
To address this, start a calendar. Look at the week ahead and add immovable commitments like a doctor's appointment or meeting with a client. Then, go day by day, figuring in sufficient time for work, errands, social activity, home life, and transit. If a day seems too full on paper, it will likely feel even more so in reality. Redistribute a few activities from that day.
5. Get into a routine
Routines foster success, better mental and physical health, improved sleep, and social functioning. Getting into one can help you regain control and even boost your productivity.
Set an alarm for the same time every workday, take breaks at similar hours, and get into a rhythm of extracurriculars. Bolster your success by predicting what could disrupt your routine, like using a snooze button or overscheduling your day. Take steps to support your productivity, too — like meal planning ahead of time or coordinating child care with your partner.
Start small by identifying simple ways you can prioritize your physical health throughout the way, like nutritious snacks or mindfulness breaks. These healthy habits will help you get out of the rut you’re in and encourage you to take better care of all aspects of your life.
6. Avoid procrastination
Do you ever find yourself scrolling on social media when you should be making a presentation due tomorrow? You’re procrastinating, and it’s a normal reaction to overwhelm. Procrastination is a self-protection strategy you may use when you’re fearful of a task or feeling vulnerable. Maybe the work takes more effort than you feel you can give or surpasses your skills. Perhaps you avoid particular tasks because they’re high-energy but boring, and you dislike the drained feeling after completing them.
But procrastination is a vicious cycle. If you put off an unsavory or difficult task, it will still be there. And you risk not having the time or energy to complete it by its deadline. Work to overcome procrastination by first admitting you’re doing it. Then, start to chip away at the task and consider the consequences of further putting it off. When you complete the work, celebrate your success. Rewarding yourself can remind you in the future that there’s a perk to eating the frog and persevering.
7. Adopt a positive mindset
You may feel overwhelmed because you’re focusing on the negative in your life. When your mind lists problems or pending work, you risk forming a “can’t do attitude.” You convince yourself you’ll never complete your tasks, achieve your goals, or overcome challenges.
But those negative thoughts don’t represent reality. Even when you’re struggling, there are positive aspects of your life. If you commit to a positive mindset, you’ll be able to see and appreciate them.
A positive outlook doesn’t mean sugar-coating reality. It implies seeing the good and the bad, reminding yourself of your talents, and confidently working toward solutions to issues. When you adopt a positive mentality, you believe that by making a concerted effort to complete a task or shifting away from a relationship that’s not serving you, you regain control.
8. Stop people-pleasing
Take a look at your to-do list. How many of the items on it are activities that you must do (i.e., for work) or want to do for yourself? Are there any you’re solely doing to please others?
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a hard look at the tasks you do only for others’ benefit. Sometimes, helping — like caretaking for an elderly family member — is an activity you need to do or that brings you contentment and meaning. Other times, you’re only doing things to please others. Stop going to the yoga class you don’t have time for but attend consistently because your friend wants company. Say “no” to a new project at work if your plate is already full.
9. Ask for help
Asking for help can be hard. Research shows that even young people fear this act makes them inferior, weak, or incompetent. Others fear rejection or inconveniencing their loved ones or peers by needing support. But no one can do everything on their own. And if you try to, you’ll likely find yourself overwhelmed with tasks you can’t manage. At work, there might be things you could delegate to someone else if you weren’t insistent on doing them.
Get more comfortable asking for help by naming the emotions that arise when you do so. Challenge their accuracy. Will your coworkers really think you’re not an attentive manager if you ask for a hand with delegating workloads? They likely won’t, and your colleague could be happy (or even feel honored or chosen) if you ask for their expertise.
Another tip is to make an intentional decision to ask for help. Instead of waffling or hinting at it, commit to asking someone for a hand. Make sure they’re right for the job, that you’re not asking at a time when they’re overwhelmed themselves, and that your request is clear.
10. Take time for yourself
Imagine you’ve gone from “how to get my life in order” to actively “getting my life together,” and you feel stable and productive. You’re out of crisis mode. But even if life flows better after some changes, you risk burning out again. Avoid future overwhelm by building in breaks.
Taking time for yourself doesn’t have to mean booking a spa weekend. While those fun experiences can rejuvenate you, it’s best to make self-care a consistent routine of healthy habits. Establish a Sunday afternoon meal-planning ritual to enjoy cooking nutritious eats for the week ahead. Schedule a daily nature walk and get physical exercise while being mindful in nature. Protect your sleep routine to get optimal rest. And enjoy quality time with your partner, friends, and family.
All of these steps will help prepare you for what lies ahead, keeping you rested, recharged, and ready to keep yourself together in times of hardship.
Take control of your life
Sometimes, you look up from your life and feel lost. When did your career become so stressful and your home life so hectic? In asking these questions, you’re taking the first step toward taking control of your life back.
Knowing how to get your life together doesn’t necessarily come naturally. In fact, figuring it out can seem like one more task on a daunting to-do list. But when you identify the problem areas of your life, learn to manage your time efficiently, and ask for help, you take back control. Managing overwhelm is an extraordinary act of personal growth, and it comes with great rewards. You’ll lessen your stress and infuse your days with more meaning.
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