The cost of your time

There can be both waste and value in our time. 

▪️WASTE 
Oh the time we waste: indecision, uncertainty, waiting for change, for the right time or until we feel ready? 

What if all that time was added up and displayed on a huge digital clock, flashing in front of us?

We’d shudder at the hours and days wasted. 


▪️VALUE
What results might be possible if we do a little each day? What if we spent 5 or 15 minutes? How would that also tally up and accumulate day after day?

It’s only a little bit of time, but each day it’s contributing to your goal or plan. 


If you’re tallying up waste, looking back on what you haven’t done, it’s not that helpful a space ... to berate, shame or criticize ourselves. 

Instead, do a little: everyday or several times a week.

▪️Writing a book: write 100 words
▪️Leading change: communicate each day
▪️Launching a business: do a small part each day
▪️Creating your own IP: collect an idea a day. 


The goal or dream is not a disaster if you didn’t achieve it all in one sitting. 

If you’d started 4 months ago, wow just imagine! 
Or 4 weeks ago, or 4 days ago. 
Or today!

There is massive value in our accumulated efforts - even when we don’t see the returns immediately.

Naming the struggle

While guiding a group with mentoring advice recently, the most common statement in their questions and sentences was, ‘I’m struggling with…'

Learning, growing, changing and adapting is indeed a struggle. 

And it’s being magnified further in these times! 

Struggling - in less violent terms - is about doing one’s best, but I wonder, what is it that we are doing in struggling?

Are we :
- Getting used to ...
- Annoyed or frustrated with ...
- Trying to understand ...
- Debating or weighing up...
- Confused about ...
- Taking longer than we expected?

All of these situations could indeed be a struggle. And I wonder if that feeing of ‘I’m struggling with…’ is worth redefining or renaming, rather than bundling it all up as struggling. 

Acknowledge it is a struggle. Yes. 

And then explore what else it is: whether it’s a frustration, an obstacle, a question, or just another a step along a path of change. 

Perhaps it’s more challenging than we’d liked, hoped or expected. 

Where overwhelm and overload come from

The words were right there in the job ad - “must be able to multitask”. 

Does the employer really want someone to join the team who: 
- Divides their attention across multiple tasks. 
- Stops and starts those tasks. 
- Juggles too many things at once. 
- Doesn’t finish them. 
- Wastes time. 
- Lowers their IQ. 
- Feels overwhelmed. 
- Is exhausted at the end of the day. 

And will show up and do it all again tomorrow?

Sadly this is what multitasking looks like and what it’s doing to us. 

Our inability to focus for longer than a few minutes is getting worse. An employer looking for multitasking as a capability is crazy.

C. R. A. Z. Y. 

The rise in our overwhelm and overload is made worse by dated work practices and expectations like ‘must be able to multitask’. 

Thinking it is efficient is an old way of thinking, working... and leading. 

A daily battle of multiple multitasking sessions leaves us overwhelmed, overloaded and exhausted. 

How to work instead? 

- One thing at a time. 
- Stop starting. Start finishing. 
- Focus for shorter periods of time.
- Take a break. 
- Focus again. 

It’s more productive and efficient. And it’s easier, simpler, kinder and smarter for us all. 

From anxiety to action

In these times of great change and uncertainty, anxiety can show up. 

What’s happening? 
How will things change again? 
What will happen next? 

There are many questions and confusion can be common. 

To help allay fears, reduce anxiety and take a step towards greater certainty, Sensemaking can help. 

Healthcare workers for example, are making great use of Sensemaking. 

Working in changing and uncertain situations means they need to ‘make sense’ of what’s occurring. It helps them professionally and personally and is part of the delivery of healthcare services. 

To make sense, we can use stories, data, tools and templates. 

You can ask: 
- What’s going on? 
- What’s the story?
- What do we need to do? 

It’s a deliberate step that can help any of us shift from the swirls of anxiety ... to the steps of powerful action. 

Sensemaking as a way of coping and understanding

If overwhelm, stress or uncertainty creeps up and dumps on you, get out a pen and paper... and map it all out. 

- Map out the overwhelm: what’s going on?  

- Map out the stress: what’s happening - what are you thinking about? 

- Map out the uncertainty: what do you know and what could you do about that? 

Rather than endless thinking thinking thinking, sensemaking can help because it involves the visualization of what can seem like a mess of information. 

We’re able to get perspective on where we are and what’s going on so it begins to make more sense to us. 

It doesn’t need to be fancy. 

A simple page of shapes, lines and words can be enlightening and uplifting. 

There are no rules. Your map doesn’t have to be a certain way. 

It’s the act of making a map that helps get the tangle out of your internal mind and out onto an external page. 

Sensemaking is one of the key capabilities of adaptability : to be able to respond to and deal with change. 

If we don’t map to make sense of things, they don’t make sense no matter how much thinking we do.