Worksheet · Anxiety and stress
Get the anxious noise out of your head, sort it into tasks, important thoughts and spam — and turn chaos into a plan.
Online version
An anxious playlist keeps running in your head and you can’t concentrate.
You can’t fall asleep at night: thoughts pile up on top of each other.
There are so many tasks and problems that you don’t know where to start.
How it works
The brain keeps playing the same anxious playlist, and as long as the noise stays in your head, it grows. When you move the stream onto paper, you slow the chaos down and see it from the outside for the first time — like a crumpled ball of paper that you finally unfold and spread out on the table.
Then everything goes into three baskets. Tasks go into the calendar — your brain stops holding on to them because it knows your phone keeps the reminder. Important thoughts become a plan of small steps. Useless ones we call spam and cross out. The best moment for the exercise is when anxiety hits: your mind is already in full swing and the avalanche of thoughts is already moving.
A technique from the author’s book “В чём смысл жизни”. In its logic it is close to “if — then” plans: when a time and place for an action are chosen in advance, people carry it out more often (meta-analysis by Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006). It is also similar to the worry postponement technique from cognitive behavioral therapy.
If among your thoughts there are thoughts of death or of harming yourself, this is not a “useless thought” and not a task for a list. If there is an immediate danger to life, call 112. To talk to someone, call 116 123 (10:00–24:00) or Eluliin: 655 8088 (Estonian), 655 5688 (Russian), 19:00–07:00.
If things feel very bad right now or you are having thoughts of death: 112 — immediate danger to life, around the clock; 116 123 — emotional support, 10:00–24:00; 116 006 — victim support crisis line, around the clock; Eluliin 655 8088 (Estonian), 655 5688 (Russian) — 19:00–07:00. Emergency help →
If this topic feels familiar, a consultation can help clarify what is happening in your situation and identify practical next steps.
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