How To Use Planning To Relieve Anxiety
We recommend helpful products in our articles. Read our full disclosure here. The content on this website is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Shared by Amber at ShineSheets.com
Sometimes anxiety comes from such simple things like getting late in the morning, encountering an unpleasant person, or simply being stuck in traffic.
These things, together with the anxiety they create, usually go away pretty fast.
But there’s also the anxiety that doesn’t seem to go away.
It’s just there.
It keeps you up at night, thinking about the things you need to do, bills you have to pay, things to remember, and what not.
You seem to be going with your life with a constant, nagging voice in your head: “What if?…”
The good thing is that if any of these are solvable, you absolutely don’t have to stay so anxious about them (and worrying about unchangeable things is even more unproductive).
A great way to ease your anxiety and spurt some action is to start planning.
Also read: How to beat negative thoughts and restart yourself
How To Use Planning To Relieve Your Anxiety
How does planning help to ease your anxiety?
1.
It takes the problems out of your head and relieves tension.
2.
It helps you see your problems from the perspective (many times they’re not as bad as you think).
3.
It helps you to focus on possible solutions instead of the problem itself.
4.
It guides you through the problem-solving process.
5.
It gives you a feeling of hope and order in your life.
How can you start planning to get rid of your anxiety?
For starters, I really recommend you to read my guide on planners, their differences, and what to add to your planner to make it fit you: How to set up a planner you’ll love
It will help you decide on what type of planner to choose and what inserts would suit you best right now.
And if you want to get pretty, minimalistic planners that you can print and start planning right now, check out the ShineSheets Store.
Now, let’s find out how you can use planning to bring order to your life and relieve your anxiety:
1. Start by writing everything down on paper sheets.
Things that are bothering you, the tasks you need to do, bills you have to pay, things you want to change… Everything that keeps you anxious and insecure.
2. Once you’ve done that, start sorting things out.
Create a Task list for your tasks, a Payment list for the bills, Goals list for what you want to change, and similar lists to start creating some structure.
3. If any of these things need an action, create an action list for each of them.
For example, if you need to pay a gas bill but don’t have the money for it, list all the possible solutions to that situation.
Then, choose the best one and write down what you need to do to make it happen.
Also read: How to finally finish anything you’ve been putting off
4. Now start planning your daily and weekly schedules.
While doing that, include things from the action lists you created in the previous step and always prioritize things that are most important.
Try to add a reasonable amount of tasks for each day.
Sure, there’s a lot you need to do but you don’t want to create even more anxiety by making yourself overwhelmed.
At this point, I want to emphasize the beauty of premade printable planners.
They can help you sort things out much easier and keep things separated + less overwhelming.
They make the whole planning process much faster too!
5. Take one day, one week at a time.
If you feel inspired and motivated on a particular day, do more.
If you feel like you’ve taken too many things at once, try to make your daily schedule lighter.
Always, always put your well-being first because if you get very tired, you won’t have the energy to solve any of those anxiety-creating problems.
Planning may seem intimidating at first, but ultimately, it should give you anxiety relief.
Once you get the problems and negative thoughts out of your head, there’s only way forward to solving things that keep you anxious.
I hope this article inspired you to take the first step to do just that.
"We love to research problems, examine studies, analyze solutions, and share with you ideas that make life healthier. You can learn about us and our editorial standards here. Have suggestions or feedback to share? Send us a message!."
Leave a Comment