When you’re overwhelmed by chores and burned out, start by stepping away from the pile for a few minutes, then write every chore down in one place and pick the single smallest one. Leave your planner, your app and your whole system alone for today. A chore pile this big usually comes from good days that took on too much, and a tired day can’t get through all of it at once.
What does being overwhelmed by chores look like for me?
Right now there’s an embarrassing pile of laundry behind me, and the dishes need doing too. I let the chores go for too long, and now there are so many of them that I just want to crawl back into bed. I’m tired, I’m burned out and I’m a little defeated.
When it gets like this, I shut down. I say screw it, throw my hands up and lie back in bed scrolling. Nothing gets done, and the pile is still there when I put the phone down, which makes the next try feel even heavier.
I have ADHD, and seeing all the undone things at once is a lot for my brain. The more of the pile I can see, the harder it is to pick any one part of it.
Why do chores pile up until they’re overwhelming?
For me, chores pile up because I plan on my good days and do the work on my tired ones. I’m not the same person every day. On the good days, I think I’m going to have a good day every single day of my life. So I pile on the tasks as if the energetic version of me will be the one showing up to do all of them.
Then a day like today comes along, and the person who shows up is tired and done. Good-day me wrote that list, and she had a lot more energy than I have today. If you want a record of which days are good-day you and which are tired-day you, I built Energy Battery to log your energy through the day.
This blog is about planting seeds, and on my good days I try to plant the whole garden in one afternoon. I overwhelm myself all the time, and then I burn out. The chores are just where it shows first, because they’re the easiest things to push to tomorrow. The digital hoard of projects I have going on is harder to see, but it’s there too.
Why do I want a new system every time I burn out?
A new system is my go-to. Anytime I feel burned out, I decide my system is the problem: the planner is wrong, the app is wrong, the list needs a new layout. I build apps and tools all the time, so setting up something new is an easy place for me to go. I even built myself a gamified cleaning app once. I used it hard for six days, and then the gaps started. I wrote up why my gamified cleaning app didn’t stick on jen8n.
The system usually isn’t the problem, though. A new app doesn’t wash a single dish. It gives me one more thing to set up on a day when I’m already out of energy. And the same good-day me will fill the new one up just as fast as the old one.
If a system still feels broken on a good day, that’s a better time to look at it, when it isn’t standing in for the laundry.
What do I do first when the chore pile wins?
First I step away from the pile, then I let something else pick one thing off the list for me. Neither one works every time for me yet, and I’m still figuring out the rest.
Step away before deciding anything
The first thing is walking away. Getting out of the room where the pile is, even for a few minutes, gives my head a little space before I try to choose what’s next. I wrote more about what stepping away is like for me in How to Rest Without Guilt When You’re Spiraling, including the times it doesn’t help.
Let something else pick one thing
The second thing is getting the whole list out of my head and letting something else choose. I built myself a brain dump tool for exactly this. I talk or type the whole mess into it, and it hands me back one thing, the easiest one, instead of the full list. If that one still feels like too much, there’s a button to make it smaller. I wrote about how I built it on my other blog, in I Built a Brain Dump Tool That Empties My Head.
A tool isn’t required, though. A piece of paper does the same job if you write every chore down and then circle only the smallest one. The point is to stop holding 20 things at once and look at one. When the list is chores, the smallest one can be tiny, like putting one load of laundry in the washer or clearing just the cups out of the sink.
How do I pick today’s handful from a list that’s too long?
On a burned-out day, a handful can be one thing. A list written by good-day me isn’t something tired-day me is going to finish, so today doesn’t have to be measured against it. One load of laundry in the washer still counts as a day the pile got smaller.
If you want something gentler to count small wins with, the free printable adulting stickers were made for low days like this one, when doing the dishes takes everything you have. And if the pile is a mix of chores and half-finished projects, Too Many Ideas in Your Head? Sort Them Into Seeds can sort it.
Today’s action
Get the pile down to one thing
- Leave the room where the chores are for 5 to 10 minutes. Don’t decide anything yet.
- Write every chore down in one place, on paper or in a note on your phone.
- Circle the smallest one on the list, even if it feels too small to count.
- Do only that one, then stop if you want to.
- Leave your planner, app and system exactly as they are today.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do when I’m overwhelmed by chores?
Step away for a few minutes, then write every chore down and pick the smallest one. Doing one small chore is more useful on a burned-out day than planning to catch up on all of them.
Is it normal to feel too burned out to do chores?
Yes. When my chores pile up, the list itself feels heavy enough to freeze me, and I have ADHD on top of it. Feeling done doesn’t make you lazy. For me, it means the list was built for more energy than I have today.
How do I catch up on chores when I’m exhausted?
Don’t try to catch up all at once. Pick one small chore a day, like one load of laundry or just the cups in the sink, and let the pile shrink slowly. Save bigger cleaning days for when you have more energy.
Do I need a new planner or app to stay on top of chores?
Not today. When I’m burned out, I tend to blame my system, but a new app doesn’t do the dishes. Leave your system alone on a hard day and look at it again on a good one.
Why do I keep overloading myself on good days?
Good days make it easy to assume every day will feel like that. I fill my list as if the energetic version of me will always show up, and then the tired version has to deal with it. Knowing that is the first step, and it doesn’t fix it overnight.
How does ADHD make chores feel more overwhelming?
For me, a visible pile of undone things makes every task seem urgent at once, which makes it hard to start any of them. Getting the list out of my head and looking at one item at a time helps more than looking at the whole pile.
Where I am with this
The laundry is still behind me as I write this, and I don’t have a neat ending yet. When you’re overwhelmed by chores and burned out, step away first, write the list down, do one small thing and leave your system alone until a better day.
A book I made
The Lightest One
An undated ADHD daily book that never asks you to prioritize. Dump everything in your head, mark each thing light, medium or heavy, and do the lightest one.
Get the paperback →I run an affiliate program on the tools I build. Approved affiliates earn 20% on what their referrals pay, for up to a year. US only for now. See the program →
