The load we create and allow

If you or your team are still having back-to-back meetings throughout the day, stop! Please?

The blend of one meeting into the next does nothing for cognitive load coping. Our overload stays in overload because there’s no chance to ... unload. 

That means when you want to get great ideas and contributions from the team, they won’t have them. 

When you want them to work on planning, collaborating or decision-making, they won’t have the space and attention for it. 

We may think people are disconnected or disengaged when they could be cognitively overloaded.

For clearer and fresher thinking, invite, welcome and encourage breaks between (and within) meetings. 

Even a few minutes makes a difference. 

Create a break:
⏰ Start meetings off the hour at 10 past. 
⏰ Finish meetings prior to the hour. 

Working back-to-back isn’t smarter, particularly when you’re already overloaded. 

It might feel busy and important. 

Instead, it’s overloading the system... our system. Us. 

The synthesis of an idea

Many people waffle. On and on. 
Not conscious of the passing of time. 

As the talking continues, it’s harder to hold the thread of the information and it’s more challenging for us to keep paying attention. 

With increased stress and uncertainty in these times, most of us are experiencing reduced capabilities. It's tougher to take in information and process it effectively, for example. 

We must consider how we package information for people: presenting it in ways that make it easier to take in, quicker, clearer. 

Just talking, endlessly, won’t land an idea. 

Synthesis is a tool.

It’s how you analyze everything, bringing all of the parts together, reducing it down to something that can be taken on. It's not simplifying. It's synthesising. 

And it helps people better take up information in times of pressure, challenge and uncertainty. 

Edit again and make it shorter. 
Cut and carve up for shorter sentences. 
Package it up, in a package. 

That information you’re about to send ... revisit it and see how you can synthesise it further. 

Help the receivers do less work. 

The skill of generation

One of my previous job roles was in healthcare, leading the Community Relations team at Peninsula Health. 

A big part of the role was crafting information about public health issues for the community, media, employees and stakeholders. 

I was helping the radiology team communicate about CT and nuclear medicine scans. 

The head Radiologist said ‘Give me an X-ray or a scan and I can write a report about it, but you’ve just made something out of nothing’. 

There were a few facts to work with, but yes, I’d generated the rest. 

This is a skill; to be able to take an idea or a concept and to make sense of it, to generate an explanation, a story, a blog (or a LinkedIn post!)

The more regularly you generate, the better you can get at it. 

While you might be waiting for all the facts to come in before you create, or you’re following a formulaic template to create it quicker, the best generation comes when you step into the shoes of your audience. 

You answer the questions they might have and expand on information that addresses their concerns and curiosities. 

This isn’t just generation for the sake of content creation. 

It’s generation ... with great consideration. 

Overwhelmed by the gap

When the gap is too big between where I am and where I’d like to be, it can seem insurmountable, uncrossable, impossible. 

It’s a huge step towards a big goal. After all, we’ve been told to ‘dream big’ haven’t we...

While we know every journey begins with a single step, it can look more like a leap or pole vault from where we are. The gap may be too big for us to imagine crossing or closing. 

And then ... ‘oh hello overwhelm, you cheeky beast!’

To identify what brings about our own overwhelm is a discovery that’s worth the work. My overwhelm may be different to yours, which could be different to theirs. 

No deep probing and analysis required; just watch your patterns. 

They are there. 

The next few times you’re overwhelmed hold great insight. These give us the chance to redefine the often generalised use of the word ‘overwhelm’. 

It’s then that breakthroughs for better ways of thinking, working and living will come.

Overwhelmed with information

Have you felt it lately? 

Our sponge gets full - gradually or rapidly - and then we’re ‘done’. We can’t keep taking information in unless we do something to get the existing information out!

Where does your overload come from? 
- A day of back to back meetings
- A new project
- The to do list
- Working from home
- Dealing with uncertainty and stress ... 

All of these things can bring on a state of overload and overwhelm.

The thing is, we don’t have to ‘suck it up’ or ‘push on through’ or ‘keep it together’. These are old ways which battled or fought with the overload. 

There are newer, smarter ways to understand, rework and redirect overwhelm.