It’s perfectly natural to feel overwhelmed right now. These are unprecedented times, and although we’re asked to keep our heads down and power through, the fact of the matter remains that things tend to pile up. Stress can mount. Simple tasks can seem impossible to accomplish. That’s fine, but there are tactics you can use to regain control in the face of an unpredictable future. First, tackle familiar tasks. There’s comfort in doing what you know you’re good at. Even if this means going through your inbox and deleting spam, you know it’s something you can easily check off your to-do list for the day. That momentum will build. But if it doesn’t that’s OK too. Allow yourself to accomplish less than you’re used to but try to accomplish something. Although you might feel like doing nothing, long stretches of unproductive time rarely help. A good compromise is to do half of your normal work. If that means taking a half-day, that’s fine, or if that looks like only checking off half of your to-do list, that works too. The point is to make the day feel more manageable instead of avoiding it entirely.