Author: poppanew

In the last post of our series on backups, we’ll explore where the best place to store your backups is, and whether that’s in the cloud or on your server.

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It’s time for the third and final post in our series on website backups. If you’re just jumping in now, take a few minutes to review part one here and part two here.

So far, we’ve talked why you need to be backing up your website, and not relying on your web host or server provider. Second, we’ve talked about how often you should be backing up your site. Now, it’s time to explore where the best place is to store your backups. This is a critical decision and the good news is you have lots of options, including free and paid options.

Let’s talk about them from worst to best, in my opinion.

Not The Best

When using your backup plugin or script, you may see email as an option for your automatic backups. You shouldn’t send your website backups to your email address.  First, email can be insecure. You could leave your data exposed as it travels the internet. Also, some email providers may block the reception of large backup files. Only use this as a last resort.

Slightly Better

Storing your backups locally on your server is also an option. This is fine for quick backups before you test or upgrade a plugin, for example, but it’s not a good long-term location to store your backups. If something happens to your web hosting server, your files may also be affected. It doesn’t take much to break a server, especially on a shared hosting provider, where resources are oversold and security is lax. If a drive fails, or a site is hacked, your backups could be, at best, lost and and at worst, compromised. Don’t store them on your hosting server.

You may also run into issues if you are trying to migrate or copy your site. I was recently working with a client and we needed to make a copy of their site. I was surprised to find a dump I made of their site was over 25GB, even with excluding the media folder of WordPress. It turns out, they were storing their backups locally, so the plugin I was using to migrate the site was including those local backups.

Getting Better

Setting up the files to automatically send to another server or service such as Dropbox is a good first place to get your backup plan going.

Several plugins like Updraft will allow you to store your backups in a service such as Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, or Google Drive. These are good places to store your files as you start on your backup journey. However, services like Dropbox may offer only a certain amount of free space, so keep an eye on your quotas. You should also be aware that if you use something like Dropbox, you are giving your site access to all of your Dropbox files. If your key or login is compromised, the attacker will have full access to your Dropbox or Google Drive.

The Best Option

To best protect your data and yourself, I would recommend storing your backups in a cloud-based storage provider. These providers would include Amazon Web Services’ Simple Storage Service (S3), DigitalOcean’s Spaces, BackBlaze’s B2 product, or Rackspace Cloud Files.

These systems are built to store files and offer finely tuned permissions and controls. This gives you full control over how, where and who the files are accessed.

The Process

Here’s an example of how I set up Amazon S3 for our client’s sites backups:

First, I create a new Amazon S3 bucket for each client’s site. This helps our team not only keep track of where the backups live, but also allows us to make sure we don’t cross the streams in terms of login keys. I then set these new buckets to not be publically viewable. This is different than if you were hosting web content for use by the world by the site’s editors. For our backup needs, we want a secure home where no one can even see our files.

Next, I create a new Amazon IAM user for each site. That’s a lot of acronyms, but it’s a username and password (in the form of two long keys) for each new site we’re backing up. Here’s a good IAM tutorial post.

I then tell Amazon that the only person that can access our new bucket is this new user. That’s it — our backup files are protected and need a username and password to view and download. No one can stumble upon them or download them. This is often how large chunks of data is compromised – permissions aren’t set correctly and world-read access is granted  by default. Here’s a story on this practice.

A similar setup and process will work for Backblaze, Rackspace, Azure and DigitalOcean as well. The big difference will be how to set up the accounts and secure the storage containers.

In the end, backing up your WordPress website needs to be a critical part of your web strategy. If you’re unsure on how to get backups set up and configured correctly, let us know and we’d be glad to help you.

Map photo by Capturing the human heart. on Unsplash

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It’s great you are backing up your website. The next challenge is to determine what’s the right backup schedule, which can vary depending on many factors.

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In the past, I’ve written extensively about improving the performance of your WordPress site. That’s very important work you can do, as speed matters. But what happens if something happens to your site? What if you’re hacked, or the hard drive on your server dies? These are all common events that could leave you high and dry with all your website content gone. Backups will be your best friend should any of these tragedies occur. In this three-part series, we’ll explore how and why to backup your website.

Why should you backup your WordPress website?

A key part of any web strategy should be how to protect your site, and a big part of that is backups.

If you’re using WordPress to manage your website (and you should, it’s a great tool), you have to worry about many pieces and parts — from pages to posts, media to plugins, there’s a lot to keep updated. Backups are key to this.

You should be backing up your WordPress site. Period, full stop. If you are relying on your hosting provider to do it, you may be disappointed. They may not be backing up all your data often enough. Site backups are something that you can easily do yourself, and setting them up will bring you peace of mind.

As you’ll see below, there are many choices when it comes to storing your backups.

Plugins Can Help

There are several backup plugins available, many of which are free or have a free tier. I am a user and fan of UpdraftPlus, one of the more popular WordPress backup plugins. It’s a set it and forget it tool that will backup your site files, media, plugins, themes, and more on a schedule you determine.

The only negative about Updraft is that it likes to nag you to upgrade to their paid plan. I have no problem with a plugin developer asking folks to update, but Updraft does it a lot. Credit to Updraft though — they share details here on how to hide their nag messages.

In addition to Updraft, there are many backup plugins, both free and paid, available to download. These include plugins such as BackWPup, which behaves similarly to Updraft in that you can control where you would like your backups stored and how often your backups run. BackupBuddy, available since 2010, also allows you to schedule backups and store them where you’d like.

If you don’t want to manage where your backups are stored, there are plugins that do the heavy lifting for you. These include plugins like VaultPress, which is created by Auttomatic and is part of the JetPack suite. There’s also Snapshot Pro from WPMU Dev, which includes 10GB of cloud backup storage. Snapshot Pro is a paid plugin.

This is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of important backup information. Next week, in part two of this series, we’ll explore setting the right backup schedule for your site.

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If backing up your website isn’t a key part of your strategy, it should be. You can’t afford for your site to be down if something happens. With regular backups, you can mitigate those issues.

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WordPress version 5.3 released last week. In this release, there are changes in the way WordPress handles very large image uploads. Previous to 5.3, the software would allow you or your users to upload images of any size into the media library.

This in and of itself is not a problem, but many sites and themes did not have automatic image and/or thumbnail image sizing setup. These sites often just embed that full size image into a page, template or post and scale it down with CSS or hard-code it in the image tag. In version 5.3, WordPress will size down images over 2560 pixels high and wide down to a max of 2560 pixels (in either direction.) That means your 4000 pixel wide image would be sized down to 2560 pixels wide and scaled horizontally proportionally.

Here’s a snipped from the WordPress.org blog talking about the change:

When a new image is uploaded, WordPress will detect if it is a “big” image by checking if its height or its width is above a big_image threshold. The default threshold value is 2560px, filterable with the new big_image_size_threshold filter.

What’s important to note is that the original uploaded image is not discarded. It will still be stored in the system, and you can access it using the original_image meta value. It can also be accessed by calling  this new function: wp_get_original_image_path(). This is important to remember if you have limited storage available.

For most users, they won’t notice this change. It will help file size  and improve download speeds. However, there are use cases where you need to be able to get at the big image. Yes, you have those new functions, but that will mean having to back into your theme or plugin.

To that end, you can disable the resizing by adding this filter to your functions.php file:

add_filter( 'big_image_size_threshold', '__return_false' );

Even with this change in image handling,  you should be optimizing your images regardless. This new change will not affect existing optimization setups

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This year has been much different than we all expected. Obviously. Sorry for the hyperbole, but it’s true, especially when it comes to hosting events in higher ed. We all saw our large planned events like admitted student open houses, commencement, alumni reunions, lectures and more postponed, done on Zoom, or cancelled. I have sat […]

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This year has been much different than we all expected. Obviously. Sorry for the hyperbole, but it’s true, especially when it comes to hosting events in higher ed. We all saw our large planned events like admitted student open houses, commencement, alumni reunions, lectures and more postponed, done on Zoom, or cancelled.

I have sat through many Zoom events this spring and summer as the parent of an incoming freshman college student. Some were great. Some were OK. Some were bad. There are just so many variables when it comes on online events, especially when it comes to having multiple people participating from multiple locations. There are so many variables when it comes to people’s webcams, lighting, microphones, echos, backgrounds and more. These variables means that our events don’t have a consistent look and feel.

Perhaps we need to rethink how we’re doing live events in higher ed, and not just during a pandemic. Let’s be honest, this won’t change once this pandemic ends or a vaccine is available. People are going to be apprehensive of large gatherings for the foreseeable future.

I watched a live event this past weekend that really opened my eyes to new ways to do live events, and it came from a Scottish rock band called Biffy Clyro.

Before I go much further, I’m a big Biffy fan. I’ve seen them four times, I’ve got all their albums (many on vinyl.) Last week, they released their eighth full length album, A Celebration of Endings. Traditionally, a band would release an album and do promotion around the world, including live shows. Since just about every live, in-person event is cancelled, it’s forced artists to find alternate ways to connect with fans and promote their work.

Biffy Clyro are no different. In addition to an acoustic series earlier this summer, the band promoted a live worldwide event where they would be playing their entire new album live. Prices started at $20 and went up from there. Costs were slightly higher if you ordered a CD or vinyl along with your purchase.

I will admit I was skeptical at first about the event, despite being a super fan. I was apprehensive about the quality of the stream, given the cost, for an event that would be less than 90 minutes.

Thank goodness I had a change of heart and bought a ticket. The show was absolutely awesome.

The Live Show

There was a 30 minute pre-show before the album playthrough started, consisting of the band playing some older tunes in soundcheck as well as a few acoustic numbers., During those acoustic songs, the band used one of those binaural head microphones so the sound was all around you. The band took full advantage, walking around the mic singing and playing. Finally, some behind the scenes footage from the studio was shown, and then it was showtime.

The band kicked off the album playthrough in the famous Barrowlands ballroom in Glasgow, Scotland. They started on stage playing a few songs, but as the set went on, they spread out all over the event space, including the floor where the audience usually is. A string quartet joined them there, along with additional instruments. A third set filled the corner, but the highlight for me was when the band moved to large glass cube to play, not unlike their performance for BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend earlier this year.

Here’s the thing about this event. It wasn’t technically live, happening at the exact moment I was watching it. It was pre-taped, despite being promoted as being live. It’s nitpicking, but I guess technically the band was indeed playing live. Even though the show was 1 long live event, it was recorded a few days before for the reasons I mentioned before. For as high a profile event as this, you couldn’t afford to have anything go wrong and keep your paying customers from getting what they paid for. Recording it in advance also let the band stream it at different prime time slots around the world. The UK and Europe got the stream at 9pm their time, and we got it a hours later here in the U.S.A. Given the high level of production that went into this show, I don’t mind it was pre-recorded.

The ticketing process was also interesting. About an hour before the show, customers were sent their ticket. The ticket consisted of a link to an unlisted YouTube live stream of the event. You may have noticed the fact it was YouTube in my screenshots.

In a way, hosting the stream on YouTube is genius. Why not use the infrastructure of maybe the world’s largest technology company (Google) to deliver your product. After all, YouTube is setup to do live streaming, will stop people from downloading the stream (best they can) and turn the video off at a certain time. This greatly reduces the barrier of entry for colleges, universities and small businesses. That has to be easier than maintaining a video streaming infrastructure.

Does that mean that I could have shared my link with everyone I know? Sure. That’s definitely something to think of you are going to use YouTube as your technology back-end.

What does this mean for higher ed?

I can see this becoming an interesting option for some campus events going forward.  Having the ability to pre-record, edit, caption and more before a promoted event would be a lifesaver for over-stretched marketing teams.

This type of setup would be great for a “live” admission event, for example. You could pre-tape introductions from your president, admission leader, students, even do things like a campus or dorm room tour. There would be no live Zoom challenges or lighting or bad sound, sketchy backgrounds and more.

You could set the video to premiere at a certain time and promote that as a big event. It’d be up to you if you want the chat to be there, but if you do, have a moderator there. If your school has award ceremonies, such as an alumni awards event or academic awards, a pre-taped “live” event might make sense.

This model would work for free events but I can see a market for paid events. There’s an opportunity here for an alumni office to offer a 30 minute presentation by a beloved faculty member (though it would mean not take live questions.) Perhaps its a musical performance by students or faculty. A poetry reading would be a great experience.

And what’s nice about this method is that you aren’t limited by location. Sure, you can tape a faculty member reading poetry in a lecture hall or auditorium, but why not have them read from the top of the bell tower? Your virtuoso guitar student? Have them play in the middle of the quad while they circle around you and your immersive microphone.

There’s so much opportunity there to do something really special and break out of very boring Zoom calls and streams we’ve been doing for the last few months. I’ve blogged about tips to improve your videos in the past, it’s worth revisiting if you’re taking on more video in the year ahead.

A great example of this type of event was Apple’s WWDC keynote this past June. They pre-recorded bits from around their amazing new campus and it really helped drive the story. Instead of watching slides on a screen behind someone on the stage, you were watching that person in Apple’s silicon development lab. It really helps sell the message.

When it comes time to promote your “live” event, you can drive interest by using scarcity. Even though using video and a platform like YouTube means your video can be online forever, you can limit access, much like the Biffy show. Once the show was over, I couldn’t go back and re-watch it. It was live, and one show only. And I’m okay with that, it made the experience feel special and made me pay more attention and be more engaged. I wasn’t checking my phone, or had the video playing in another window. My son and I sat around my nice big monitor and good speakers and shared the experience together.

I want to say I am still a fan of the live event. My family attended many such events this past spring and summer and they were very informative. They were a great way to connect with schools on our son’s list and narrow down

If you’re like me, and you may be since you’re reading this post,  you get ideas for apps , websites and services all the time. I know I do. What I am bad at is actually executing these ideas. Sometimes I write a little code, other times I buy a domain name that would fit […]

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If you’re like me, and you may be since you’re reading this post,  you get ideas for apps , websites and services all the time. I know I do. What I am bad at is actually executing these ideas. Sometimes I write a little code, other times I buy a domain name that would fit my idea and then life happens and before you know it I have a bunch of folders, some code and domain names but no real sites to speak of.  I’m trying to break that cycle.

I worked in higher ed from 1998 to 2016. It was both the best and hardest career choice I could have made and it was awesome. I met so many awesome colleagues, team members, friends and more across that time. I left and went to the private sector for two years, but it wasn’t a great fit. At that point, I went full-time on my own at my digital agency, Gas Mark 8.  I kept looking for higher ed roles, interviewed for several (including a few full-day on campus interviews) but nothing went my way. What can you do — it happens.

Over the last 6 years since I left higher ed, I’ve seen so many amazing people leave the industry. It started pre-pandemic, the last 3 years have really been hard on higher education and there’s been a large exodus of talent. There are a lot of reasons for that, and we know many of them (pay, remote work, career advancement, difficult environments, the big sea change in education, and so on.) There has been a very large brain drain, and that’s a bummer.

I’m bummed because I love higher ed and it’s important. I don’t know what the future holds for it, but I believe in what its about. I have one child a year away from finishing college and one a year away from starting. They’re working with amazing faculty and staff and taking advantage of all the opportunities they can. It’s so critical as they get ready to go out into the world.

Back in 2013 or 2014, I created a very quick and dirty job search website that provided links to the HR listing pages of colleges and universities around me in Cleveland, where I live. I was curious about what was out there, and made a simple tool. I shared it with some folks on my team, and added more cities like Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was just for me mostly, and had very little in terms of design or usability. I did, however, notice that a few schools featured  RSS feeds, and I added a note in my code to someday build out a feature that would grab those job posts and show them on the page without needing another click. The idea nagged at me. I took me 7 or 8 years, but I finally built it.

Before Christmas, I was going through some folders of code and old sites and found the old job site I made. “Finally,” I thought, “there has to be an easy way to build this.” In about 15 minutes, I spun up a WordPress dev site, installed some of the tools we use at Gas Mark 8 and got to work. I started with the last school I worked at (miss you, JCU) — it’s also where my son attends. I threw in their RSS feed and to my surprise, it worked. There were 15 jobs in a custom post type I created. Interesting…

I continued to iterate on features and data structures. The goal in my mind was to build something I didn’t have to babysit. I wanted to add schools to it, import their posts and make sure the data goes to the right place. It started out well. I found more and more schools whose applicant tracking system (ATS) offered RSS or Atom feeds. A decent amount do but the vast majority of them to do not. TMany are closed systems, which is fine, but it stinks to not share that data.

One thing that the plugins we have and the code I’ve written so far doesn’t do (except for a few tests) is scrape pages to get job postings. The ones I’ve tried to scape use the same system so I can re-use my code but many obfuscate their code and don’t let you make requests to data like JSON feeds (looking at you, Workday.) If anyone has written a scraper for any of these ATS sites, let me know.

Once the jobs were coming in, the actual web site  needed a layout, design, UI and most importantly a name. Let me introduce you to CollegeAndUniversity.careers. Have you tried to find a good domain name lately? It’s difficult.

After a few weeks of work and getting some help (thanks, Dylan!), it’s ready for use. I’ve polling about 90 schools and the site now has over 7,700 jobs. It polls schools daily, gets new jobs, edits existing job and deletes jobs that are no longer posted. We’ve created some cool searching ability (by keyword, state or both.) I think it would be cool to allow people to create job search alerts, but that’s down the road. I’ve got a nice feature list going.

We also have a logo. I had one made awhile ago for another app (it’s on the list to build) and we all love it so it’s got a graduation cap now. Why an octopus? It’s got eight legs. Our agency also has an 8 in it. Made sense at the time. I’m thinking of calling it Tako.

The site is built in WordPress and uses Elementor. I did the design in XD and we built it from there. It uses WP All Import Pro to poll all the schools and import the jobs. I wrote some PHP to scrape a few sites that didn’t have feeds. It’s OK but not the best. The site is hosted at Cloudways, where we are a Gold Agency Partner and are big fans. They’ve made our lives much easier.

I’m sharing it here because there are still some folks who subscribe to this blog via email so I hope you’ll open it and visit it. You may still work in higher ed, so I’d love your feedback and ideas on how to make this the best job search tool possible.

If you have a second, would you mind checking it out? Better yet, if you know of someone who is searching for the next stop in their career, please share it with them. We’re adding new schools every day and if just one person finds an amazing opportunity from the site, then all the work and time will have been worth it.

Me? I’m glad to get one of these ideas out of my head and out there into the world.

Thanks and Happy New Year Career!

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“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts

I must admit, dear reader, that I wasn’t always a fan of change—not even a little. I wouldn’t say I entered this world naturally inclined toward new or unfamiliar things.

Like many children, I found comfort in routine—the joy that comes from ordinary moments repeating themselves. Whether we realize it or not, repetition builds a mental framework that quietly defines our comfort zones.

Maybe that’s where identity begins, slowly shaped over time. And perhaps that’s why, …

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts

I must admit, dear reader, that I wasn’t always a fan of change—not even a little. I wouldn’t say I entered this world naturally inclined toward new or unfamiliar things.

Like many children, I found comfort in routine—the joy that comes from ordinary moments repeating themselves. Whether we realize it or not, repetition builds a mental framework that quietly defines our comfort zones.

Maybe that’s where identity begins, slowly shaped over time. And perhaps that’s why, while others struggle to recall their earliest years, I remember mine so clearly—because the foundation of my childhood was disrupted early on by a dramatic shift.

You see, my early years were divided between two drastically different parts of the world. One chapter unfolded in the familiar calm of the United States; the next, in the chaotic hum of a developing country.

It’s not the most typical of childhood stories, but I was pulled from my life in San Francisco and thrown into the Philippines as a six-year-old girl. My story begins just before that life-changing move—in the heart of a city I called home.

Simple Days

My first memories of San Francisco are filled with pigeons on sidewalks, ice cream at Pier 39, sunshine in Yerba Buena Park, and seafood dinners with buckets of crab, shrimp, and fish. My parents ran a small corner store beneath our apartment while holding full-time jobs.

That shop was the source of many joyful moments—snacking on candy, hotdogs, and whatever treats we could get. I can still remember the layout of our three-bedroom apartment, the party room where my grandfather handed out chips, and the rooftop playground where we rollerbladed and played tag.

As a child, I was energetic and loud, especially in school. I often got in trouble—not for anything serious, but for being talkative, fidgety, or overly enthusiastic.

That trait hasn’t gone away. I still get excited easily—so much so that people sometimes question whether my enthusiasm is real.

But I never wanted to tone it down. Maybe I watched too many Robin Williams movies. Then again, it was the nineties.

Those were the simple, happy days I’ve always cherished—before everything changed.

Into Chaos

Picture a six-year-old who had just started first grade, still talking about Disneyland, now sitting on a plane heading to the other side of the world. The irony wasn’t lost on me—traveling to my family’s country of origin and yet feeling like a stranger to it.

All I had was the unknown ahead of me—and a handful of roasted peanuts to calm my nerves.

But it didn’t take long for the new reality to hit. I was thrown into a completely different world—fast, loud, and all at once.

Gone were the paved sidewalks. In their place: dusty roads with no curbs. The rivers I once knew were now polluted waterways, lined with trash and a lingering smell that hung in the air.

Dust rose with every passing vehicle. The traffic moved like chaos—cars weaving, horns blaring, people changing “lanes” at will. Looking back, it felt like a game of MarioKart—motorcycles, jeepneys, trucks all racing without rules.

And seatbelts? Nonexistent. People clung to the backs of buses, fingers gripping metal bars for balance. Honestly, even Mario Kart had more order.

The hardest part, though, was adjusting to the humble conditions of our new home. There was no hot water, so my mother would boil it in a kettle and pour it into a basin every day.

Power outages were common, and when it rained, the streets often flooded—sometimes with rodents or worse floating past as we walked home. Cockroaches flew through the air, and lizards skittered across the walls during breakfast.

Sure enough, words like “disturbed,” “terrified,” or “confused” don’t quite capture how I felt.

Homesick

It’s only natural to feel overwhelmed in that kind of environment at such a young age. I remember the shock vividly and how much I missed the world I had left behind.

If I’d been younger, maybe I wouldn’t have noticed. But I was already aware of the world and my place in it.

I’d learned to observe, mimic, and ask questions. I was sensitive and curious—and all of that made the transition harder.

I missed San Francisco—my school, my classmates, the little things that made life feel normal.

And though I’m not proud of it, I saw myself as different from the people around me. That discomfort became my first lesson in how flawed ideas of “otherness” truly are—a lesson that would grow with me over time.

But there was still so much more to learn.

Slow Opening

When you resist a situation, it becomes easy to judge everything around you. That judgment breeds negativity, and before long, it colors your entire experience. At some point, the only way forward is acceptance.

Somehow, I found the strength to stop resisting and take things one step at a time. Because wherever you are in the world, the need for human connection never changes.

So I went along with it. I showed up to school, even when I couldn’t understand my classmates’ language.

I tried. Every day, I tried—slowly picking up words, watching how people spoke, doing my best to be open.

Eventually, the language began to make sense. I started to come out of my shell.

With my siblings, I explored the street food that showed up each week in our neighborhood—ice creams in local flavors served with magic chocolate, hot cheesy corn, sour mangoes with fermented fish paste, salty pork and beef barbecue skewers, fried fish balls with oyster sauce, and caramelized bananas. Strange at first, but so delicious.

One unforgettable moment I can still recall was when our entire building lost power for several hours. These “brownouts,” as the locals called them, happened often and without warning.

It was always inconvenient, but on that particular night, large groups of kids and parents came out of their homes during the outage. Despite the darkness, candles and battery-powered lights lined up the edges of the open spaces, imbuing the entire building with a warm glow.

I can still remember enjoying the cozy atmosphere they made along with the background sounds of small talk and guitar music while meeting other neighbor kids for the first time. Little did I know that a few of them would become some of my closest friends and playmates for several years to come.

That night changed something in me, and not just from the possibility of new friendships, but because it was the first time in my life that I saw how a begrudging inconvenience could be transformed into a beautiful moment of connection.

Small World

After that, my energy returned, though with more caution. After all, it was still life in a third-world country I was dealing with, and it was not very difficult to get hurt at random, like someone running your foot over with their car by accident.

Still, before long, I was speaking fluently, playing after school, and venturing out to buy snacks in the neighborhood. It was common for families to hang signs of what they were selling outside their homes.

With just a few coins, I could buy candy, pastries, or a soft drink tied in a plastic bag. It wasn’t the usual way to drink, but on hot days, it felt like a treat.

There were plenty of local sights that stayed with me—boys climbing coconut trees, old men puzzled by Halloween. But there were also shared experiences: Gameboys, Nokia phones, WWE wrestling, kara

…

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“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

Overwhelm doesn’t always knock politely. Sometimes it crashes into my day like an unexpected storm—suddenly I can’t think straight, and everything feels urgent, impossible, and too loud. One minute I’m fine, the next I’m spiraling in my head, convinced I’m falling behind on everything and failing everyone.

If you’ve ever sat frozen in your car in the grocery store parking lot, staring blankly at a to-do list that now feels like a personal attack, you’re not alone.

Here are …

“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

Overwhelm doesn’t always knock politely. Sometimes it crashes into my day like an unexpected storm—suddenly I can’t think straight, and everything feels urgent, impossible, and too loud. One minute I’m fine, the next I’m spiraling in my head, convinced I’m falling behind on everything and failing everyone.

If you’ve ever sat frozen in your car in the grocery store parking lot, staring blankly at a to-do list that now feels like a personal attack, you’re not alone.

Here are six things I turn to when I feel completely overwhelmed—none of them fix everything, but they all help me find my footing again.

1. I stop trying to “figure it all out” right now.

When I’m overwhelmed, my brain turns into a malfunctioning computer with eighty-seven tabs open and nothing loading. I immediately try to solve everything at once, like I can outthink the chaos if I just try hard enough.

But thinking harder doesn’t fix it. It just fries my system.

I’ve learned to pause and remind myself: I don’t need to fix my whole life in this exact moment. When I feel myself spiraling into “fix all the things” mode (shoutout to ADHD), I write down whatever I’m trying to remember or control. That way I’m not ignoring it—I’m just parking it somewhere so I can get through the thing I actually need to do right now.

2. I pick one tiny thing I can do.

Sometimes I stare at the mountain and forget I can just take one step. My brain immediately goes into “do it all right now or you’re failing” mode. And that’s when I end up doing absolutely nothing except overthinking and hating myself for not being productive.

So I stop and ask: What’s the next five-minute task I can do without using my last brain cell?

Not the whole kitchen—just get the dishes out of the sink. Not the whole inbox—just respond to the one email that’s been haunting me for days. One drawer. One phone call. One bill.

It doesn’t feel glamorous, but it’s how I trick my brain into motion. Because five minutes of action beats two hours of beating myself up for not doing anything. Tiny progress is still progress. And sometimes, it’s the only kind that’s available.

3. I ground myself in something sensory.

When anxiety hits, it’s like my brain hijacks my whole body. Suddenly, I’m not just stressed and overwhelmed. No amount of logic works in that moment because my nervous system doesn’t care that everything’s technically fine.

So instead of trying to think my way out of it (which never works), I shift focus to anything physical. I take a cool shower, drink a cold glass of water, light a candle, or put on my favorite scented lotion. I’ve held ice cubes before just to shock my brain back into my body.

Sometimes I just sit with my cat and focus on the feel of his fur under my hand, like, “Okay, this is real. This is here. I’m not being chased by a bear.”

Sensory grounding actually helps. It’s not deep or profound, but it’s basic anxiety relief. And honestly, that’s the vibe I’m going for when I’m spiraling: survive first, analyze later.

4. I do a ten-minute reset (phone-free).

I set a timer and do something quiet and simple—no phone, no news, no notifications. Just ten minutes without input. That alone feels like a luxury.

I sit outside and zone out to whatever the wind is doing. Or I color like a bored kindergartener. Sometimes I wash the dishes really slowly, like I’m doing a meditative art form instead of basic hygiene. And occasionally, I just lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling like I’m rebooting my entire existence.

It’s not about being productive or using the time well. It’s about giving my brain a break from having to be on all the time. Ten minutes of stillness doesn’t fix everything, but it gives me just enough space to breathe again—and sometimes, that’s all I need to keep going.

5. I check my self-talk for cruelty.

Overwhelm brings out the absolute worst inner dialogue. My brain turns into a mean girl with a megaphone. She says things like:

“Why can’t you handle this?”

“You’re behind—again.”

“Everyone else is doing just fine. What’s your excuse?”

It’s not helpful. It’s just self-bullying, dressed up as motivation.

When I catch that voice spiraling, I try to pause and respond the way I would if a friend came to me in the same state—exhausted, anxious, and trying their best. I’d never say, “Wow, you’re really bad at life.” I’d say something like:

You’re not failing. You’re overwhelmed. Let’s figure out what would actually help right now.

That shift—from shame to support, from blame to curiosity—changes everything. It doesn’t magically make the stress disappear, but it keeps me from mentally kicking myself while I’m already down. And honestly, that’s a win.

6. I let it be a “low power mode” day.

Phones go into low power mode when they’re drained—and so do I. And on those days, I stop expecting myself to function like I’m fully charged.

I do the bare minimum. I eat something simple (whatever takes zero brain power and maybe comes in a wrapper). I wear the comfiest clothes I can find, even if they don’t match and have questionable stains. I don’t force motivation to show up or try to “push through.” I let it be enough that I exist and made it out of bed.

And I stop treating rest like something I must earn. I don’t need to check off five tasks or prove I’m productive before I’m allowed to take a breath. Sometimes, the most responsible thing I can do is shut everything down and reboot.

Because being human is hard. Being sensitive, overstimulated, exhausted, or just done is part of it. And it’s okay to have days when I’m not okay. I don’t have to explain or justify it. Low power mode is still functioning—it just means I’m protecting my energy until I have enough to show up fully again.

Final Thoughts

Overwhelm doesn’t mean I’m broken. It usually means I’ve been running on empty for too long while trying to hold everything together without enough rest, support, or room to fall apart safely. It’s not weakness. It’s a warning light.

These six things don’t magically fix the mess. They’re not a makeover or a glow-up. They’re a ladder. A gentle, scrappy, wobbly little ladder I’ve built over time that helps me climb out of the mental spiral one small rung at a time.

If you’re feeling buried right now—under expectations, emotions, responsibilities, or just life in general—I hope something in this list reminds you:

You don’t have to do it all. You don’t have to be productive to be worthy. You don’t have to perform your pain or prove how hard things are.

You just have to come back to yourself. One breath. One step. One tiny act of care at a time.

You’ve got this. And even if today, this just means brushing your teeth, replying to one text, or microwaving some sad leftovers—that still counts.

You still count.

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