#171| Eliminate Daily Overwhelm by Embracing “Good Enough” - Here’s How: Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing

Do you feel like no matter how much you cross off your to-do list, you’re still exhausted and behind?

This episode dives into why perfectionism and “always doing your best” may actually be fueling your overwhelm. If you’ve ever felt like giving 100% to everything is the only way to succeed, this conversation will help you rethink what productivity really looks like.

In this episode, you will:

• Discover why aiming for “good enough” frees up time and energy without sacrificing results.
• Learn how to identify when a task deserves your A+ effort—and when B- is more than enough.
• Get practical examples of how to prioritize your work so you feel calmer, lighter, and more in control.

Press play now to learn how to finally escape daily overwhelm by embracing the surprising power of “good enough” work.

Wondering why you're overwhelmed? Take my "why am I overwhelmed" quiz to find out the source of your overwhelm, and what to do about it.

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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Worki...

Chapters

• 1:02 Overachievers Stay Overwhelmed
• 2:48 The Trade-Off
• 6:37 Where to Prioritize Your A+ Effort

Transcript

Michelle Gauthier: 0:00

You know that feeling, when your to-do list is overflowing and everything feels important, like if you don't give 100% to all of it, something's going to fall apart.

Michelle Gauthier: 0:14

You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.

Michelle Gauthier: 0:40

Hi, friend, thanks for joining today. Today, we're going to be talking about a great way to eliminate daily overwhelm by embracing good enough or B minus work, as I like to call it. This is an approach that I take in my own life and something that I teach all of my clients and has helped all of us so much, so I want to share it with you today. If you're listening to this show, I imagine that you're probably an overachiever who likes to do your very best on everything all the time Me too but that's not realistic. If you want to actually get a lot of things done sometimes, you have to choose good enough over a plus. When you listen to this episode today, you'll learn why identifying what good enough or B-minus work is is powerful, even if you still choose to go above and beyond. How doing A-plus work everywhere drains your time and your energy, and how prioritizing like ruthlessly prioritizing where you want to put forth your best effort, is the key to escaping this daily overwhelm that you're probably used to but don't love. Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is defining the difference for things on your task list the difference between if I do this to an A plus level and a B minus level and thinking about what good enough would be for a task. And I'm not suggesting that you start doing B work everywhere, although you're welcome to give that a whirl and see how that works out for you. It could be great. But what I am saying is define what good enough even looks like, even if you still go above and beyond. At least now it's a conscious choice and not just perfectionism running the show without you even thinking about it. Because when everything gets your A plus effort, by default, you end up burned out or frustrated and resentful. But when you define good enough for some things and then do that and do A plus work for some things, you can feel good, like you're in control and you're choosing where to put your energy because, as you know, if you're exhausted by the end of the day, you know there's only so much energy that you have. So let's just think through some examples. What's the trade-off of doing A-plus work compared to B-minus work? I would say that doing A-plus work often takes like twice the time, maybe even more than B-minus work does, but it only delivers marginally better results, maybe 10% better at that.

Michelle Gauthier: 3:06

I'm making up these statistics but I think to illustrate the point that I'm talking about, all of us have at one point or another written an email and done this A plus version, where we do four different drafts and it's multiple paragraphs and we make sure our phrasing is perfect and maybe even we ask our best co-worker, bff, to take a look at it before we sent it. And then the B minus version is just clear, concise, done in one try. Let Outlook or whatever tell you when you spelled something wrong or grammatically done something incorrectly. And if you think about how much longer that first one took you let's say that took an hour or 45 minutes versus the second one, what two, three minutes at most and how the receiver received that email. Personally, I always like a short email better than a long one, but does it make a huge difference to the receiver when you do A plus versus B minus work? So take a look at your to-do list and things that you have on your list and just ask yourself what would it look like if I did B work on this particular thing? And am I open to that? Do I want to? Now? Lots of times when I work with clients, the idea of B just gives them a small heart attack. So you could even start with A if you want to, or B plus work, if you want to.

Michelle Gauthier: 4:28

Something I do every week is meal planning. A-plus version would be a full menu with new recipes and spending an hour every night cooking the meals and everybody absolutely loves them, and I pull my whole family about what's everybody's favorite, whatever. And then the B minus version would be like okay, we have three go-to meals that we do. We'll rotate those through, we'll have leftovers or ordered pizza the rest of the nights. Either way, everybody gets fed. And I don't know about your family. Now, I don't have a husband, so it's just myself and the kids, but they do not care. They do not care when I spend a ton of time and effort to make food. They do not care. So why? Why would I go to that A-plus version?

Michelle Gauthier: 5:13

I will say, though, this is a good example. I think if I have my girlfriends over for dinner which I do maybe like once a quarter or something I will have a few friends over for dinner. I absolutely love to go a plus on that. I love to find a new cocktail recipe. I love to make things that I know are different people's favorites. One of the things that I did last time I had my friends over is I made everybody a little individual flower arrangement in a small vase that was by their place setting. I make place cards. I love this.

Michelle Gauthier: 5:42

I go to full A plus because I get so much joy out of it. So when I know that I'm going to do that on a Friday night or a Saturday night, I think about it all week, I plan ahead for it and I love giving A-plus effort to that. I do not love giving A-plus effort to meal planning for my family. I just want something like quick and healthy, like, hey, here's a protein and a carb, maybe some veggies, here we go. Think about like a work report that you have to do every week. A-plus version would be like a polished deck with charts and animations and so beautiful, and the B minus version might be a bulleted list with key points and maybe you put it in a slide or maybe it's just in an email. So the difference is one gets the job done and the other goes above and beyond getting the job done, but at what cost?

Michelle Gauthier: 6:27

And the last point I want to make, which ties into that, is you can't choose to give that A plus work to absolutely everything or you will just lose your mind. So, just in the examples that we just talked about, imagine if every email that you write, you do four drafts and have perfect phasing. Every time that you plan a meal for your family, it's got three new recipes and it takes you like an hour, and Every time you do a simple report out at work, you're doing this full deck, etc. And you're taking so much time. If you do everything to that level and you may be a person who's trying to do this now it's just impossible. You're overwhelmed, you're exhausted, you can't get things done and then it really starts to take a toll on you.

Michelle Gauthier: 7:12

So, in order to, in order to be able to do A plus work on the things that really matter to you like for me and my business, a plus work goes into seeing my clients, goes into seeing my clients spending time with them preparing for their sessions, being a great listener, learning new coaching things, following up with them, etc. B minus work, my social media I definitely post stuff on social media, but it is not a huge priority. So you have to prioritize in your business, in your life with your kids, in everything. Where do I want to give the A plus work and where can I do B plus? So my challenge for you is just to take a look at your to do list for today and see what's on there. Take two minutes to glance at that list and say what would the difference be between doing A plus and B minus work on this, and which one do I want to do? Maybe even write an A plus or a B minus, or an A or a B plus, or whatever you want to write next to the item, so that you can gauge how much of your energy goes to that thing, because good enough is powerful, good enough gets it done, and when you stop trying to do everything perfectly, you'll have space to focus on stuff that matters most, like making special flower arrangements for your friends when they come over for dinner, or whatever it is that floats your boat.

Michelle Gauthier: 8:29

Okay, friends, if this episode felt like I was talking directly to you, I probably was. This is the exact kind of work I do with my one-on-one coaching clients just figuring out what really matters, setting boundaries that actually stick and learning to live without consistently feeling behind, which is the most amazing feeling If you're ready to feel less overwhelmed and in charge of your life again. I've got the cure for you. Just send me a message or click in the link in the show notes to learn more. You'll be able to set up a consultation call where you can tell me all about what's going on with you. I can explain what it's like to do one-on-one coaching with me, and then we'll see if it's a good fit. That's it for this week. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the.

Michelle Gauthier: 9:17

Over working woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier. com. See you next week.