A cause of our overwhelm

Productivity techniques abound for organizing our email and managing our day, but there’s a BIG contributor to overwhelm that we may overlook.

We have too much ‘on the go’ at the one time: ‘too many planes in the air’; ‘juggling too many balls’.

These sayings we use to explain overwhelm are so true !

Too much up in the air, unfinished, not landed or not done.

The problem is less about our ‘to do’ list being too long and more about how many things from the list we’re doing at once.

We inch ahead on too many tasks simultaneously, diluting our efforts ... and our attention. Our mind is full of everything we’re juggling.

These are the classic conditions for overwhelm. No wonder we feel buried, overwhelmed or inundated.

A better way of working is to reduce the number of tasks we’re working on.

‘Stop starting / start finishing‘ is an often-used mantra for this better way of working.

If you lead a team, help them prioritise and reduce the number of things they’re working on.

And if you’re your own boss or run your own business, experiment with your focus ... on fewer things.

You’ll then be in a powerful position to get the upper hand on overwhelm.

Get going or slow down

Do you need something to give you a push along ... to get you going?

Or do you need something to slow you down?

Being stuck ain’t fun. Frozen in possibility and uncertainty. There are plenty of reasons why it’s hard to get going with an idea or project.

But equally, running or flying too fast for too long can become a problem too.

There are subtle adjustments we can make and actions we can take to get going and get out of inertia. It’s a firing up, an ignition, the acceleration.

At other times we need some adjustment of speed, slowing down, a deceleration towards a speed that is more restful or ... simply sustainable.

More more more
faster faster faster
isn’t
better better better.

No matter what the world is pushing on you.

Getting started on something else might be better.
Going a little slower might be better.

Which do you need?

I’m currently slowing down. And you? Let me know...

From old ways to better ways of working

If there’s too much to do and you can’t get through it all, what do you do? A productivity app won’t magically change an entire team or organisation. There’s a bigger change needed, a fundamental shift in how we think about work.

Many of the things we do in our daily work are old ways of working. They’re leftovers from when the world - and the work - was quite different.

Some of our dated work methods are routines and habits that are hard to break.

We can consider changing the way we work to:
💫 reduce wasted activity and effort
💫 deliver greater value to customers sooner
💫 increase productivity
💫 be more effective in all we do...

Which means we get to remove some of those old ways of working:
🗑 Low value tasks and meetings
🗑 Weeks of work on a project that never gets used
🗑 Changes to documents back and forth up the chain of command
🗑 Talk-fests that don’t lead to decisions or outcomes.

As with all new habits, knowing about them is one thing, using and practically applying them is a whole other thing.

It’s good to start with some knowing, that a shift to better ways is happening.

Build engagement slowly

Starting with a bang in a meeting may seem like the way to get people’s attention - but the reverse can also be true. As we join the next meeting in our diary, we bring with us a hangover from the previous one.

The previous meeting could have been overwhelming with too much information, or frustrating in how decisions weren’t made. It could have been time wasting or unclear or .... highly entertaining, interactive and uplifting!

Every meeting leaves us with a kind of hangover that we need to unload or process. The guide then for facilitating or leading better meetings is to build engagement s-l-o-w-l-y. Slow and steady style.

That means:

> Not putting people on the spot at the start, or ever

> Not making them look foolish, and

> Not making them wrong.

It’s easy to put people off or get them offside in meetings - online or otherwise Ramp or build engagement with participants slowly, steadily ... even if you’re in a hurry to make things happen. There is plenty going on for people. Lead meeting speed safely.

Intermittent persistence

Working long and hard and burning out is too common a situation. In our quest to achieve we try to over achieve. (I wrote about this in ‘ish: The problem with our pursuit for perfection and the life changing practice of good enough’.)

If we are driven to work and achieve, how do we stop?

Unfortunately we can tend to adopt a type of relentless persistence where we just don’t give up! Persistence is a great characteristic but there are times when it’s dangerous to continue. We see it in working long and late hours, not taking a pause or break, all for productivity.

Equally damaging to our progress and well-being is resistance, to reject or obstruct and get in the way of getting things done. We block progress by putting up barriers. Or we may hear a mentor or coach suggest we need to ‘get out of our own way’. This is resistance.

Where is there progress, productivity ...and wellbeing? It’s in sprint and rest or ‘intermittent persistence’. It’s being ‘on’, really on. And then to be off, to rest and recover, reflect and consolidate. And then to go again and be ‘on’.

Persistence is good.

Intermittent is better.