Accelerate your decision making

We’ve all got plenty on the go. Our crowded to do list may not be just a sign of a lot happening in our life. 

It can also be a sign of some decisions yet to be made. 

Maybe we’re waiting on someone or some more information, or another piece of the puzzle to fall in to place. 

Other times we’re waiting for the “right time”. When is that exactly? 

It’s good to decide, to:
Choose the colour.
Set the date. 
Decide between the options. 
Select who to invite. 
Come up with the name or title. 

Many of our tasks require a decision first ... then action. 

Check through your to do list: which things are there because we haven’t yet made a decision about them? 

A decision made can ease some of our overwhelm and overload. 

We won’t need to carry the indecision around with us anymore. 

The decision is made. 

When there’s just no space

Is there space in your schedule? 
◻️Yes
◻️No it’s jammed
◻️What schedule! 

When there’s no space, no breathing or regrouping space, we’re inviting overwhelm.

‘You’re welcome here overwhelm’, we say, ‘take up residence in my diary, my world, and let me struggle, wrestle and juggle with you.’

◻️When we have ‘back to backs’ all day, we’re letting overwhelm in. 

◻️When we don’t protect time, we invite more overwhelm. 

◻️And when we cave in on boundaries or limits, we let in still more. 

It’s curious how we use the word ‘overwhelm’, as in being overtaken, flooded, inundated. Space in our life is like the sand bag to a flood.

Space serves as a boundary, a buffer that cordons off and provides us with safety. 

And space is mighty valuable too; it may not be freely dispensed or offered up. 

Those who are rushed and pressured may try to squeeze your space ... to give them more space later on. 

When we give space away and yield to this pressure, we have less space. 

Check you schedule and diary.
Put some space in here and there for the next week, at least. 

And then be highly aware of who tries to take it from you ... or how easily you’re willing to give it up. 

Too smart for ourselves

We are such clever beasts! 

We solve complex problems, generate ingenious solutions and juggle multiple roles to make our own world work. 

Yet I think we are also SO smart, that we can occasionally sometimes maybe ... over-complicate things. I know I can!

If something appears too straightforward or plain and simple, it couldn’t possibly work well ... could it? 

Isn’t anything worth doing supposed to be a struggle? 

As a mentor, I get to work with, guide and advise many talented people building and growing their own business or practice. 

When we’re all faced with a challenge or conundrum, often there is a simpler solution that we’ve considered, and then ignored or dismissed. 

In times like these, we’re experiencing plenty of overwhelm: both task overwhelm and emotional overwhelm. 

So choosing an easier path consumes less of our energy and effort ... and it’s less likely to add to the overwhelm. 

Conserve energy for the tougher stuff of life. There’s no need to make solutions, decisions and actions even more complicated. 

Choose the easier path. 
Burnout is no prize. 
Take good care. 

Deciding what to do

When a to do list is full of to do, it can be challenging to work out what to do!

And even when we start doing one to do we can be distracted with the thought of all of those other to dos.

How will they get done?
When might we get started on them?
Should we switch to one of the other to dos?

It’s one thing to list out what to do ... and another of when to do it.

Rechecking our to do list and seeing whether it’s still accurate - that is, do we still need all of those to dos - is such smart use of our time.

It’s like the ‘sharpen the saw’ activity of the two tree loppers - one who kept going with a dulling blade; the other pausing to sharpen their saw and therefore make better progress.

As good as the sharpen the saw advice is, we may not want to stop our busy day to revisit what’s on our to do list. We can fear we’re wasting time or losing our flow.

But we could already be wasting time and effort working without priority.

Check or refocus on what needs to be done as a priority. The other to dos can wait awhile.

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.