How to deal with being overwhelmed?

I was talking to my friend today and he was totally overwhelmed with all the things that are going on in his life. Recently, all these different projects for work started to show up and fall on his lap and he was unprepared to handle it all. I see this happen with a lot of my friends and sometimes even myself. And what's the solution. Obviously is to set up structures to have it all work. As my other friend says, I'd like to have my cake and eat it too. But instead of making a huge to do list and be paralyzed when you're looking at it, there's something to do before that. What there is to do is create a context. Why are you doing these projects?

This isn't the first time I've heard this question before, but there's a twist I'd like to add to it. First, a lot of people will say that they want to be financially free, be wealthy, have freedom... But all of that, is fluffy stuff. It's not something tangible. And what will happen, majority of the time, is the motivation from your why that has you push through all the projects will quickly disappear. Mainly because it's not something you can hold onto, it's not specific and there's no time frame about it.

So here are my guidelines for the WHY.
One, set up a time frame of what you want accomplish in 1, 2 or 3 months. 3 at the most.
Two, set up specific results. Like my last post, I'm looking to generate $15,000 by September 2nd, 2010.
Three, you want to make sure that your result is going towards the bigger idea of your why. Mine is to know that I can do it. And from that point will come freedom, happiness and joy.

There you go, 3 simple steps to increase the effectiveness of your why that no one ever told you about!