Overloaded before we start work

Most of us have experienced the feelings of overwhelm and information overload ... just thinking about our 'to do’ list can cue overwhelm.

A group I worked with last week, (boosting cognitive load coping skills + how to deal with information overload) explained how they listen to podcasts, audio books, interviews and radio programs on their daily commutes to work.

There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s entertaining and educational and a great use of time.

What we need to be aware of is how we fill up our sponge or tank with content and information that we absorb, synthesize and digest. Because then we arrive at work and are faced with even more content and information to absorb, synthesize and digest!

Aargh!

No wonder overload comes a’ knocking!

Cognitive overload happens rapidly or g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y. It's possible we could be overloaded before the work day begins, or soon after we get started at work.

Our indicator rises to ‘full’; there's just no capacity to add much more.

An answer? Allow a buffer, like half-time in a sporting event. Allow neutral time where you’re taking in nothing. Nothing. It helps "release the load".

Where could you ease off

Where could you do less and it wouldn’t be noticed and wouldn’t matter?

In researching and writing the book ‘ish: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough’, it's clear the problem with overworking is worse than ever.

We might work with someone who :

- Doesn’t let go

- Still has to finish ... something

- Keeps missing deadlines

- Needs to do more research, check more data.

Our workplaces must address this pursuit of perfection. It doesn't just apply at home or in the community. It’s rife in the workplace and often ignored, expected or justified.

So look at what you’re working on. Do you know what standard you’re going for or are you just continuing to 'go for perfect'?

If you stop, you will see that’s it’s likely already done well enough. Where could you ease off and people wouldn’t even notice? (This is not about neglecting standards where they're required. Settle down.)

It’s about the dramatic rise in the pursuit of perfection across age groups, sectors, cultures and countries. Notice it in yourself, your team, and keep an eye out for friends, family and the wider community.

Perfectionism is hurting us ... and we don't have to let it.

Find some red tape and eliminate it

Working with a government agency recently, we spent time on a ‘Red Tape Reduction’ session.

Red tape: those needless, time consuming activities.

Ask your customers and they'll have likely been frustrated or annoyed with something about your systems or how they interact with your product, business or people.

'Red tape'? It's thought to be based on the old practice of binding government documents with... red tape.

Frustration with red tape also comes from within the organisation too, from complicated or broken systems, time wasting forms, clunky websites.

Agreeing to go through a Red Tape Reduction session is a great thing to do! For many organisations this isn’t easy:

1. To agree to do it

2. To commit to being there in the session, identifying red tape, and then

3. To actually change things to remove the problem points.

That's because it’s way more exciting (and more rewarded via KPIs & targets) to work on new things, make new stuff and create new services.

What if at your next team meeting you just identified something that’s riddled with red tape and decided to eliminate the messy complications? You’d make things better for your customers, your colleagues ... and you.

7 hours of meetings and no time for work

This is a reality, stuck in meetings each day, trying to do the work, but being locked in back-to-back meetings giving you no time to actually do the work.

Is this your world too?

While we need meetings to collaborate, communicate, co-design and co-create, most organisations still haven’t worked out how to support their leaders to run meetings in ways that are more productive, creative, effective and collaborative.

These are the four outcomes good sensemaking + facilitation delivers in meetings:

🌕 productive

🌕 creative

🌕 effective

🌕 collaborative.

At your next meeting, ask or enquire: What sensemaking techniques are we using today, to help us understand each other and help us make these important decisions?

If you get blank faces as a response, or ’the PowerPoint deck’, or ‘Karen is taking minutes’ … these all get the ’no/wrong’ buzzer from me. Bzzzzt!

With 7 hours of meetings, the meetings aren’t working. They’re not making sense; likely going around in circles; and lacking focus, leadership and outcomes.

You need just one sensemaker in the room to completely change how a meeting works.

Are you the one? 

TL; DR 'Too long; didn’t read'

We’re drowning in it! Information overload from packs, keynotes, talks, sessions, webinars, meetings, presentations, conversations aarrrggh NOT TO MENTION OUR OWN THOUGHTS and Netflix binges, podcasts, audio books, Spotify playlists oh and pretty journals.

How do we take in more ...or just make better, quicker sense of things?

If you move from a mess to a list, to a pack, to a pic... all of these have pros and cons but the one that wins the race, the journey, the transformation is… the MAP.

We already enjoy a daily use of maps:

• Where is my food delivery?
• Why did the driver go down that street?
• Which is the quickest route to the cafe?

Maps have gone full circle (full globe?) from being crusty old, folded-the-wrong-way paper, to books of maps, to apps of maps. We know what maps look like and use them all the time. They guide and show us the unknown, unseen.

So it's too bad (and so silly) that more leaders don’t use maps instead of weighty wastes of slide decks that sucked weeks of time and tinkering from us. It could have all be done in 1/10th of the time, with 10x the impact ... with a map.

Do you map? Here’s one I prepared earlier :-)