Ways to combat overthinking

Greetings, Training for Translators readers! It’s August! Vacation season for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere!

Perhaps your mind isn’t on work, and you’re getting a well-deserved break. This year, I front-loaded my summer adventures in May and June (Fiji, Grand Canyon, cello camp), but in honor of summer vacation, I’ll be sharing some short mindset tips in the next few newsletters, then we’ll get back to the regular format in September. This week: how to use strategies and processes to combat overthinking! 

Ways to combat overthinking 

Today’s tip: the value of systems, policies, and processes for when you overthink things in your business (which most of us do!). 

I’m more freeform than rigid in my freelance business, but I think that systems, policies and processes can help us avoid decision fatigue (the energy drain of wanting to make the perfect decision) and analysis paralysis (in the face of too many options, we end up doing nothing). This allows us to save our energy for actually doing things, rather than thinking (and thinking) about doing things. Here are three ways I use this strategy in my business:

Find freedom in policies 

When I first started doing more interpreting, I found the scheduling aspect very stressful; sometimes more stressful than the actual interpreting. When you’re exclusively a translator, you can usually squeeze in a project for a good client. The work is entirely on your own schedule, so it’s not the end of the world if you work the occasional night or weekend. But with interpreting, schedule conflicts happen all the time. No sooner have you accepted a half-day assignment, when another client asks if you can do a three-day assignment that overlaps with the half day you’ve already committed to. This kind of thing was making me nuts. Should I cancel because I could make more money with the better offer? Try to find someone to replace me for the half day? The solution: a policy. I simply decided that I never cancel an already-scheduled interpreting assignment if I get a better offer. That doesn’t mean it’s the right decision; it means that I’m no longer stressed about whether to cancel. The point of the policy isn’t to make the perfect decision, it’s to stop the case-by-case anguish. This has really helped me. 

Set budgets and priorities for “bottomless pit” categories 

I think most of us feel that we could invest an unlimited amount of time and money in professional development: conferences, webinars, workshops. There’s just so much good stuff to choose from, but we don’t have an unlimited amount of time and money. Here’s where budgets and priorities come in! First, set a budget. It doesn’t really matter what the budget is (see above: the point isn’t to make the perfect decision). Your budget could be 5% of your gross income (this is what many large corporations spend per employee), or a flat amount: $500, $5,000, any amount that feels right to you. Second, set some guidelines. For example, I’m horrible at watching recorded webinars. I pay, then I never watch them. So I made a guideline: no webinars unless I can either attend live, or block out a time in my schedule *before I register* so that I know when I’m going to watch the recording. Your guideline could be something totally different; all that’s important is that you have one. 

Remind yourself that direction is more important than perfection 

As freelancers, we love to fixate on the perfect way to do things. The best marketing methods, the best day or time to send an e-mail. These can be good questions, but they can also be major energy-sucks. Instead, what if you simplified down to something like this:

• Every Tuesday, nudge a dormant client or follow up with a prospective client
• Every Wednesday, contact a new client 
• Every Thursday, spend 30 minutes on LinkedIn, sending connection requests to prospective clients 

If you do this, you’re headed in the right direction. Is it perfect? Probably not. Is it about 1,000 times more marketing than the average freelancer does? Definitely yes. 

These three “anti-overthinking” strategies have really helped me. I hope you also find them helpful. Have a great week!

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