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

Struggling? Juggling? Drowning? Argh!

These experiences of overwhelm can be a common part of a normal day or week in our life. Yes, the world can be an overwhelming place. 

• We might have an emotional experience of being overwhelmed. 
• We can experience the ‘too much on’ of workload - too much to do and not enough time in which to do it. 
• Or we might feel like we’re submerged under an endless pile of information, reports, books and reading.

At other times we can just be plain 'drowning in' it from a wicked combination of all three: emotions, workload and information. 

In today’s world, it’s these three that can be the cause of repeated and unending overwhelm. And it’s not good for us. Burnout and health issues are waiting. We need to find ways to acknowledge our emotions, manage our workload … and filter all of that information. 

Our overwhelm CAN be outsmarted. Get the powerful techniques I've explained in my book ‘Argh! Too much information, not enough brain : A Practical Guide to Outsmarting Overwhelm’ you’ll find: 

• new ways to make sense of overwhelm,
• new ways to work, and 
• new ways to cope with information. 

You’ll be all over overwhelm… it won’t be all over you!

A nap is a better way of working

Schedule it in. Sometime between 2-4pm and for between 10-20 mins. 

Go to the same place, lie down, close your eyes … and nap!

Workdays. 

It’s like a coffee break but don’t drink the coffee. 

I find I can have a nap maybe 1-2 days a week, but wondering about making it a regular work day thing. 

Don’t do this if you have insomnia. 

And I imagine anyone who’s diary is ‘packed’, ‘slammed’ or ‘back-to-back’ may not see how this is even possible. 

Start scheduling some time. 

Even if you don’t nap at first, but just stop, take a break, empty your cognitive load, move, think differently, get some fresh air, talk to a human in person, or reprioritise your to-do list … they’re good things too. 

Keep looking for better ways of working for they will become better ways of living. 

Do you nap? Read more in this article 

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.

Back-to-back is bad to worse

If the view is ‘full of colour’ when you look at your diary or schedule, you could be in the back-to-back brigade who don’t get a break. 

The scheduling - and acceptance - of a day of meetings running one into the other, is tiring, inefficient and distracting. 

This Forbes article by Bruce Rogers talks more about how our brains needs a break. 

Our ability to focus lessens as the day goes on and the cognitive load of no, or few, breaks doesn’t serve us either. 

Microsoft recently made changes to their deep down default settings in Outlook for appointment durations and scheduling. You can customize them further for your own preferences and well-being. 

This is in an effort to reduce the rotten fatigue that results from a back-to-back schedule. 

But it also takes individual, leadership and cultural shifts on ‘how we do things around here’ to bring an end to the back-to-back-badge-of-busy. 

Here’s how I roll: 
- Finish early. 
- Schedule breaks
- Block out time. 
- Protect the boundaries. 
- Model better behaviours. 

There are clear ways for us to adopt to get from bad-to-better in the breaks-for-brain game. 

What are you doing to break the back-to-back?