How to Benefit from Your Finite Capacity for Worry

photo credit: javiekitela

Do you find that you’ve always got something on your mind or something to worry about? Have you ever noticed that the fewer worries you have, the more time you devote to each?

I seem to have a finite capacity for worrying or debating things with myself. If there are lots of issues to think about they all get a little thought, but when there’s only one issue it can expand to occupy almost as much brain time as handling several problems at once.

Here’s an example: you could be worried about your job security, juggling financial priorities and trying to repair a damaged relationship with a friend. Those are all medium grade issues, none are crises. You’ll think and worry about each a little. But if the only issue you face is fixing your finances, there’s nothing to push it off centre stage so you’ll likely spend all your worrying time obsessing over that one issue.

In other words, the problem expands to fill the space available for its contemplation. There’s a stark similarity between this phenomenon and Parkinson’s Law, the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

The consequence is that a single problem can get blown out of all proportion. You make a mountain out of a molehill. This can lead to unnecessary mental torment, paralysis in tackling the problem and procrastination.

OK, problem identified. So what’s the solution? Here are some methods you can use to reduce the time you spend worrying about problems:

• Get it off your mind: in best Getting Things Done-style, get the problem out of your head. Write it down, draw it, roll it up in a ball and bounce it around. Having a phyical representation of the problem can give you the brain space to think of new solutions or ways around the issue. Simply the process of writing the problem down can be cathartic.

• Get more problems: if worrying capacity is finite, having more problems means less capacity per problem. In the same way they say you should give an urgent task to a busy person, giving a problem to a person in problem-solving mode means it’s more likely to get tackled.

• Get some perspective: imagine the worst case scenario. Is it really that bad? If the worst case scenario is catastrophic, stop worrying and do something about it now. If the worst that might happen is less drastic than that, be thankful for small mercies, chide yourself gently for getting worked up over something so small and move on.

• Make a date to deal with it: allocate an hour to really focus in on the problem. Most likely your worrying is unstructured thinking in the quiet moments of your day such as while driving or cooking. You need to focus solely on the problem to really get your arms around it. Set aside some time, sit down with a pen and paper or computer, and plot your strategy. Brainstorm solutions and think who might be able to offer advice. Setting some actions and following through on them will reward you with progress and show that you can deal with this issue after all.

• Set a definite end date: quite often you don’t know what to do to resolve a problem, at least not straight away. That’s OK because it can be very helpful to give yourself some time to think about an issue, to sleep on it, and sometimes an elegant solution will come to mind. But if you wait too long, you end up taking no action at all while continuing to worry yourself. So, when you notice that something keeps popping up in your consciousness and demanding you worry about it, set a deadline for mulling things over. Think about it all you like until then. The deal is that when you reach the deadline, you must take action, perhaps by brainstorming solutions as suggested above.

I’m keen to hear if any of you have experienced this phenomenon. It might be that I’m the only one, in which case that’s something else to worry about…

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