Lose the list

Most of us are drowning in information, slurping from the firehose, not coping. And in that, lists don’t work. Well not for making sense anyway.

Yes, ok list-lovers, lists are wonderful things, and here’s where and how they work best ... for actions.

📍To do lists

📍Shopping lists

📍Task lists

The list is the ultimate tool for managing, measuring action.

✅ Tick, tick, tick. Done, done, done.

The BIG but: a list is not the best tool for learning, making sense or connecting dots. The only way you can ‘connect the dots’ on a list is down, down the page. It’s tough then to find lateral, horizontal and reverse/upward connections of information when your eyes and mind are drawn down down down. We can find it harder to discover connections, insights and ideas in a list.

Love lists? Great, but keep them for actions, to tick off and track progress.

When it comes to capturing information, making sense, connecting the dots and managing cognitive load, leave lists out of it.

Know how you get overloaded

I'm posting on cognitive overload this week. We feel overload at conferences or training when we feel 'full', overflowing with information and can't take any more in.

Here's how it happens:

🐞G-r-a-d-u-a-l

This mental overload happens over a long day. You feel like a zombie and the simplest tasks can seem difficult. As the day wears on, you might think the sessions are less interesting or less captivating, but it's usually because we are less able to discriminate and determine what's of value.

🚀Rapid

You can get overloaded in a single presentation or meeting; this is over a shorter period of time; too much information and too high a degree of difficulty (yes, like Olympic divers or gymnasts executing a tricky move!)

Cognitive overload is a common problem in the modern workplace. We're confronted with so much information from so many different sources, and in so many different styles.

It's not going to fix itself ... we'll need to do something about it. The skill is 'cognitive load coping.'

Lynne Cazaly - Keynote at Agile Alliance 2019

What a privilege to be at Agile 2019 in Washington DC and today, to take to the stage and deliver a keynote.

The topic was ‘ish: The problem with our pursuit for perfection and the life changing practice of good enough.’

Here's a visual summary of the key points I presented. You can get the book, ebook or audiobook - yes with me narrating - wherever you normally buy your books!

The bottom line is, perfectionism is a problem that is on the increase. Most of us have a little bit of perfectionist in us. When we are encouraged to bring our whole selves to work, that means we will be bringing some of our perfectionist traits as well. Sometimes that can slow down our abilities to achieve, collaborate and deliver great value to our customers.

It’s worth our while to find alternative ways of working that don’t involve the pursuit of perfection (which is impossible to achieve.)

Are you a 'bit of a perfectionist'? 

Agile is a way of thinking and working

This week I'm at the Agile 2019 conference in Washington DC. Some people think 'agile' or 'agility' are buzzwords or cliches. Well they are if you throw them around trying to sound all ... agile!

Agile is actually a way of thinking and working that's sweeping the world. And it's not just limited to the tech industries where it started to thrive. It's being applied across all sorts of fields, sectors and industries.

I keynoted at the conference on the topic of ‘ish: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough’.

This week I'll be posting insights and key points from the 18 streams and hundreds of sessions available on agility ... not to mention those magical, spontaneous conversations you get to have at great conferences!

If you’re stuck in long-term planning mode or taking w-a-y too long to get products and services created and out into the market, you’ll join the list of businesses who aren’t in business anymore! We all have to adjust, respond and adapt to the changes going on in the world and the demands and expectations our customers have. This is being agile.

How could you be more agile in your role, team or business?

Expecting too much of ourselves

I was chatting with a colleague today and she said she hadn’t completed a task to ‘her standards’. I enquired what the standards were. They existed in her mind but not on paper and not in writing. She'd said: ‘It has to be neat, look professional, be better than anything I’ve ever done for them before, be the best I can do, be me at my best.’

Do you see how difficult it will be to reach each of these unmeasurable, undefinable targets?

As she's working on her task she’s also not so complimentary about her progress. She was denigrating and rejecting it. ‘It’s just not good enough yet’, she said.

And here it is. This is perfectionism; the ’not good enough yet’ drug.

The drive we have to make things better because we wrongly believe: - people are paying more attention than they are, - that it matters more than it really does, and - that what we’ve done so far won’t cut it. We're too critical of our ideas, work and success.

We berate, scold, criticise and reprimand ourselves. Repeatedly. Would we do this to another human? This harshly? I doubt it. It's time to firstly define the standard... and then be kinder to ourselves.

Q: What are you 'beating yourself up' over right now?