Coping with overload / Status anxiety /Job opportunities / Chunk and Learn and Learn/ Clever Skills coming

Answers to overload

In the work world of too much information, it doesn't take long before we feel the effects of cognitive overload.

The pace and amount of information isn't slowing down, so we have to adapt to cope. Meetings, conversations, presentations, learning, to do lists, project tasks … there’s just too much to carry. Everyday.

The information deluge is forever incoming. And AI is creating more information to review, make sense of and filter.

Our mind space is limited. And when we don’t use that space well, we experience overload.

Conferences, offsites, team days and information-based events (remote or in person) create the perfect — and challenging — conditions for information overload.

I worked with a team recently who want to make this a focus for development this year.

They’re tackling overload and kind of saying, ‘no more; we need to do something differently.’

And our everyday life isn’t easier. We’re frequently drowning in the deluge of scrolling, reading, listening, shopping, packing, travelling and planning.

But we don’t need to suffer … or give up. There are techniques and practices that help give us a clearer mind and an optimistic outlook about all that information and what to do with it.

My new OPENING KEYNOTE for conferences, events, offsets and team days is a winner. It sets you up to get the most out of the day, 10x your learning takeaways, and makes you feel better at the end of the day.

Enquire now about these vital skills for your team, people and organisation.

---

Where the job opportunities are

The short answer is: everywhere.

The longer answer is: jobs will continue to be needed.

As investment, opportunities, ideas and innovations emerge and evolve, new and additional careers will rise to the surface. And keep on emerging and changing.

As we need more and different things in life, we may outsource, delegate, distribute or invite others to help us with those things. To design them, collaborate, create, make or innovate them.

And we may not know what they are right now. But cycles come and go, rise and fall, ebb and flow.

Keep in touch with what’s changing and how it might impact your career — or the path you’re on right now, and where that path may lead.

Read more from the World Economic Forum in this article.

---

Do you chunk

Dealing with information overload is a daily battle. Some things are most certainly worth remembering - while others are just … meh. Nope.

To help handle the load, chunking is still right up there with one of our greatest memory tools. Think mobile numbers, account numbers or other memorable details; they’re best recalled in chunks or small blocks.

And while some data doesn’t need remembering these days thanks to facial recognition or fingerprints, there’s some unique-to-you information that is worth retaining. Your expertise.

Don’t be too quick to delegate all of your ideas, information and experience to artificial intelligence.

You have case studies, stories, experiences and know-how that is worth remembering and reincorporating into your work, career and life whenever it’s required. Public speaking, coaching and leading are some situations where being able to draw from your memory could boost results and outcomes. And chunking could help with the recall.

Read more here in this article.

---

Learn … and keep on learning

Our ability — and willingness — to learn really is one of our most wonderful capabilities.

Our capability to become more capable!

The world needs us to keep on learning. Don’t stop. It’s about becoming a renaissance person. Read on.

---

New book coming - pre order

Clever Skills : How to use your greatest human capabilities for the unfolding future by Lynne Cazaly

Hello. How's it going? As the future arrives faster and faster, with more automation, artificial intelligence and augmentation than ever, how do you plan to adapt?

Do you know … or are you going with whatever happens happens?

While FOMO (fear of missing out) can be strong in life, there is an increasing and real FOBO (fear of being obsolete).

Our desire for relevance, meaning and purpose is strong. But is this default strong enough to handle the dizzying changes as they arrive and unfold?

3 questions for you:

1. How will you stay relevant?

2. How will you adapt your career so you are employable -- yet retain meaning in your work?

3. What will you need to do to stay with (and ahead) of changes in your industry, field and domain?

I am obsessed with picking trends, spotting themes before they are mainstream, and then adapting myself, my business and life to these shifts.

Here’s a project I’ve been gathering and curating over four years : CLEVER SKILLS: How to use your greatest human capabilities for the unfolding future

In Clever Skills I share 25 capabilities that will take you through times of rapid and/or mind blowing change.

With wise counsel and insights and experience from leading in companies, mentoring more than 150 business owners and developing teams and leaders, I’ve curated an in-depth list of clever. It’s presented as an easy-to-follow 'life-side-guide' on what to do now, next and in the unfolding future.

Pre-order at a special pre-order price

🥏 Released May 1, 2024 Unless the future unfolds even faster 😜

🥏🥏 Pre order the paperback here

---

NEW SPEAKER KIT

Looking for a speaker for your offsite, team day, conference or event, get my 2024 speaker kit with details on:

• Opening Keynote on Cognitive Load Coping
• Plenary and Masterclass Topics
• Closing Conference Session - The Co-Creation Experience TM

Get it here

Too much information

The answer isn’t to communicate less. It’s to adopt some better practices. 

This article from the World Economic Forum ties nicely to some of the thinking in my book ‘Argh! Too much information, not enough brain’. 

There’s plenty of information to be had. There’s so much that it even has a name : infodemic. 

And synthesising or reducing information all the time isn’t the answer either. Abbreviated and reduced summaries have caused and created more information issues for us. 

We can’t take it all in, all the time. 

How might we think and work with information in better ways? 

➡️ And have you got your copy of ‘Argh!’ yet? It’s getting some great reviews from people who’ve bought it and put the practices to work to outsmart their overwhelm. Ebook and paperback are out now. Audio book is out there too …

The foolish economy of not taking a break

“We don’t need a morning tea break, let’s keep working.”
“We will have a working lunch.“ 
“This is really important, so let’s keep going.”

There they are. The statements of overload and worry that ‘we won’t get through this’ so ‘we have to push on’. 

As a participant and team member I’ve experienced leaders who won’t take a break. 

And as a speaker and facilitator, I’ve had clients not want their team to take a break. I often have to fight for, advocate for or at worst, implore leaders to give people a break. 

The science is well documented: We need breaks. 

Not just to recover physically, but mentally ... to synthesise information, consolidate information and even ... go to the bathroom! 

A lot of good stuff happens in the break from the talking, thinking, listening and pushing of information. 

Connections, reflections and important thought processes are being executed. Brain actions that may not be possible during the intensity of the never-ending workshop or meeting need to happen, and a break is when it occurs. 

To think we ‘can’t afford’ to take a break is foolish. 

What are you worried will happen? 
Disengagement? Loss of momentum? Slower progress? It’s already happened because there wasn’t a break. 

At the least, break so people can empty their ‘cognitive load’ - the information they’re holding in their brain, and just like a truck we can’t carry more when it’s full. We must empty and ‘unload’ before we expect people to ‘reload’. 

Breaks are mandated in fields like aviation, healthcare, transportation, building and construction ... even retail. 

The consequences are disastrous when breaks are ignored or deemed less important than pushing on through. 

🌕 Break during a meeting or workshop 
🌕 Break between meetings and workshops
🌕 Break during intense and heavy work
🌕 And break for longer than you think. 

You don’t need a complicated well-being program. Just take more breaks.

Too much to deal with

I’ve been reading, researching and thinking a lot about overwhelm.

Overwhelm means to bury or drown beneath a huge mass of something. And frequently ... it’s our work and responsibilities!

When you see the usage of a word over time, it’s interesting to note when it started, peaked and what it is doing today.

Overwhelm as a word was at its peak in the 1800s. Use tapered off in the early to mid 1900s and the word has experienced a great resurgence of use since 2019. 

I wonder why?!

The Cambridge Dictionary says overwhelm is a verb, of force. To defeat someone or something by using a lot of force.

Alternatively, the emotion defines overwhelm as to cause someone to feel sudden, strong emotion.

At its simplest, overwhelm means to have ‘too much to deal with’.

We’ve all experienced this - a time when things felt ‘too much’.

Rather than just ‘sucking it up buttercup’, ‘soldiering on’ or ‘pushing on through’ in a war with our overwhelm, I think we can do something different...

My book ‘Argh!: Too much information, not enough brain’ is out.

I hope it helps you outsmart overwhelm from some different perspectives.

Weapons in the battle of distraction

Imagine wearing a huge motorcycle helmet that blocks the ‘out there’ and let’s you focus on the ‘in here’. 

It has a screen, noise cancelling everything and lets you get on with it, minus distractions. 

This seemingly crazy idea from 2017 was earlier considered by SciFi Pioneer Hugo Gernsback in the 1920s.

‘The Isolator’ as it was called earlier, was designed to block out the distractions that are all too familiar to us. 

But distraction isn’t new and even medieval monks complained that they were distracted and ‘rendered unproductive’. 

Expecting to be able to work or focus undistracted for hours on end is too high a standard to reach for. 

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, there is always distraction available. 

Our own minds (thinking) and our own interruptions (oh look, kitty wants to play) are contributors to what frustrates our expectation for endless focus. 

The most successful modern anti-distraction tool is ‘the timebox’ or Pomodoro. Set a timer and focus until it goes off. 

25, 30, 45, 50 minutes

Try it. I’ll wait here for you.

❓What tools or techniques do you use?