October Part 3 - Your Busyness Threshold

Week Three

Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash

Welcome to Part 3 of October’s focus inside The Simplified Year!

This week, we’re finding your unique sweet spot for how much activity you can handle before you tip over into overwhelm, and how to stay in that sweet spot more often. While “busy” might feel normal, there is a point where it stops being productive and starts eating away at your peace, your health - both physical and mental - and your joy.

Your busyness threshold is the point where your energy, patience, and clarity start to crumble under the weight of “too much.” Cross it, and you’re more prone to mistakes, stress, resentment, and exhaustion. Stay under it, and you’re calmer, more present, and better able to enjoy your life.

This week is about learning what your limit looks like, how to see the early warning signs, and how to protect that limit with practical tools so you can stop living in a constant state of “too much.”

How are you doing with this? Do you already know your tipping point? Or have you been living past it for so long that you’ve forgotten what “enough” even feels like?

Either way, we’re going to slow down, take stock, and create a visual that helps you spot your red zone before you burn out.

This Week’s Focus: Your Busyness Threshold

Your busyness threshold isn’t static, which is why it’s so complicated to understand; it shifts depending on your season of life, your health, your responsibilities, and even your hormone cycle. Some weeks, you can juggle multiple plates with ease. Other weeks, even one extra obligation tips you over the edge.

The goal here isn’t to “raise your threshold” so you can pile on more. It’s to understand and respect your current limit, protect it fiercely, and gradually strengthen it in a healthy way when needed.

This week, we’ll map your tasks by priority, notice which ones drain or energize you, and practice arranging your days so you can stop without guilt when you’ve reached your limit.

Why This Matters (Mindset Reset)

Your busyness threshold is like a personal safety line. Ignore it, and you risk snapping—not just emotionally, but physically. Living past your limit doesn’t make you a more devoted mom, partner, business owner, or employee. It just makes you depleted. And when you’re depleted, you’re less effective at everything.

Motherhood, in particular, can be relentless in pushing you beyond your threshold. Sick kids, school events, sports schedules, laundry piles, dinner prep—it all adds up fast, especially on top of work and other demands in life. But you can decide where your limit is, and you can design your days to stop before you cross it.

Just like a “clutter threshold” in minimalism (that point where too much stuff in your home tips you into chaos), your “busyness threshold” changes as you adapt to less. The more margin you give yourself, the more you’ll crave it, and the less you’ll be willing to return to the old frantic pace. And if you’re thinking you don’t want to want to do less? Trust me, your whole body, mind, and soul will thank you. We were not made to live at the capitalistic, patriarchal, colonialized, corporate pace that most people today are used to. And you can not only survive, but thrive, after letting that pace go.

Respecting your threshold doesn’t mean you’ll never be stretched. Life has emergencies and unexpected seasons. But it does mean you’ll know how to recognize overload earlier and recover faster - in the end getting more done than when you were trying to go Mach 5 and missing every important, present moment in your life.

When you operate inside your sweet spot, you make better decisions. You stop resenting your commitments. You even show up more fully for the things that matter most.

And perhaps most importantly, you stop measuring your worth by how much you can cram into a day. Keep reading for instructions on how, as well as new habits, tips, and details about your goal this week.

Knowing Your Early Warning Signs

Every person has telltale signs that they’re approaching overload: irritability, brain fog, clumsiness, poor sleep, snapping at loved ones, forgetting things, losing (or gaining) appetite, or losing focus. Part of your job this week is to name yours.

Once you can see those signs early, you can take action before you crash fully. That’s the difference between a quick reset and a two-week spiral.

A New Habit to Implement

We’re going to build your “priority ladder” this week:

List everything you regularly do (use last week’s schedule inventory as your base).

Rate each task 1–5 based on importance to you. One is most important; five is least.

Group them visually; either as pages in a notebook, a color-coded chart, or as separate checklists.

From now on, you’ll start each day with your 1’s, then your 2’s, and so on, but now you’ll be stopping before you reach your threshold.

Extra tip: Mark your “easiest” tasks—the fastest ones or the ones you find enjoyable. Use these strategically as quick wins at the start of your day to build momentum, resets when you’re not sure if you can keep going, or as a gentle close when your energy is getting low. Everyone prefers to do these at different points, and there is no single “right” way. No matter what, they build momentum without burning you out, or wrap things up gently.

Try This Week: Buffer Time as a Boundary

Instead of cramming your schedule back-to-back, leave breathing room between activities. Even 15 minutes of “white space” can reset your brain, lower stress, and prevent you from tipping past your threshold.

Think of buffer time like a shock absorber. It keeps life’s bumps from rattling you apart and it gives you flexibility when things inevitably run long. Even if you don’t feel “done” yet, take the pause. Hit the washroom, grab some water, pour a tea, grab a snack, or take a quick walk around the block if you’ve been sitting still.

What to declutter, specifically

Start permanently crossing off low-priority (4’s and 5’s) that take more energy than they’re worth. Work your way backwards from 5’s and then up the list, as you make phone calls to say “I’m no longer available” or “I need to cancel.” Try using “thank you for understanding” instead of “sorry” - you have nothing to apologize for when you’re respecting your own boundaries. Even one per week will make an impact in the long run. Cancel:

• Commitments you said yes to out of guilt

• Obligations that don’t align with your current season

• Repetitive errands or chores that could be batched or delegated

• Overlapping volunteer roles or responsibilities

• Things you hate doing and procrastinate out of dread - try delegating or think outside the box to a way you might be able to let these go for good.

Did I miss anything? Drop a comment, or send a message in the chat! These are living, breathing documents, and I can always update for future rounds through the rhythm of The Simplified Year!

Tips to make this process easier

1. Keep your visual simple. Perfection is not the goal.

2. Be brutally honest when rating importance—don’t rate something a “1” because it’s “urgent” when it’s actually unimportant. Be brutally honest with yourself if you’re making things a bigger deal than they actually are.

3. Revisit your ratings monthly as your list gets smaller; life changes quickly, and your priorities will shift as you become unbusy.

4. Use your “easy” tasks for motivation boosts throughout the day, or to get started if you’re delaying.

5. Give yourself permission to stop before you’re depleted. When you actually think about it, how much have you completed most days? Too often we are starting a hundred things and not finishing anything. If you finish three things, or even one big task, today - that’s improvement. Especially if you’re re-thinking repetitive tasks and ways to knock things off your list for good.

6. Don’t add more until you get completely bored out of your mind! Just say “no” until further notice.

Your Goal This Week

By week’s end, you should:

• Have a clear picture of your personal busyness threshold

• Know your top priorities (and your expendable ones)

• Be able to spot early warning signs of overload

• Have an organized “ladder” to guide your daily task flow

• Be practicing stopping before you hit burnout

You’re not aiming for perfect balance every day. You’re building awareness and learning to protect your limits. The more you practice, the more natural it becomes to say “no,” leave space, and choose what truly matters.

One Last Message:

Your busyness threshold isn’t a weakness. It’s wisdom that society tried to make you forget. It’s your body and mind saying, “This is my healthy limit”. Listen to it. Respect it. And over time, you’ll find that life feels lighter, calmer, and far more in your control.

Want to go deeper or share your progress?

Come drop into the Simplified Year community chats and let us cheer you on. This is how we start to rewrite what normal looks like, while learning self acceptance, self trust, and self confidence along the way.

You’ve got this.

You’re simply adding a small layer to the new rhythm you’re going to live your life by, and taking baby steps. And you will thrive because of it.

X

Bri

P.S. Remember, you can share these posts or this publication anytime! Help someone else simplify their life and find a new rhythm - it only takes a moment!