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. 

How to get the good stuff done

It truly is time to stop meeting like this. There have been some valiant attempts to get us to reinvent how, when, why and if we need to meet over recent years ... but it’s not changing quickly enough.

I think if you’re leading change, you just need to ‘step in’. Put your hand up, step up and say ‘yep, I’ll facilitate this one.’

Then say: ‘We’re making this a ‘doing’... not a meeting!’

Yep, meetings should be called ‘doings’. So you get stuff done. Otherwise, our meetings will continue to be dysfunctional. Too much time. Too little output. Too much talk. Too little listening. Too few actions. Too little impact. Too big a cost. 

I worked with a team recently to facilitate their team planning and strategy days and they were amazed at what they achieved in the time available. A day here. A day there. Yes that's what good facilitation will do for a group and the clear objective they had!

But it is also about HOW the meeting was set up, what the agenda looked like, how they worked together, what they did throughout the sessions and how there was a strong bias for action.

I'm all for setting aside some time for talk but that's what I do - set aside some time. Timebox it. You say 'this is how much time we have to talk about this topic.' Then go! Talk about it. I capture the key points raised, the key arguments and the main ideas and agreements. But we are always thinking about forward movement and progress. Doing.

So... timebox it 

Use the time boxing technique to get good stuff done.

I worked with some cool technology developers recently ho were working on a project for a major retail chain. Prior to the important client work, the team got together, to get their sh*t together. Smart team!

They had their strategy and planning day. And they were used to working together so what they did was use a clock with short timeframes to keep them moving, keep them progressing and keep them active. One of them was a keen runner, so they used a running clock on their iPad to segment out time for tasks throughout the day. Short intervals of just a couple of minutes.

It was brilliant to see. This team, pushed to decision making, action and prioritizing in two minutes. What!? I wondered if they could do it.... and yes, they did it. Time and time again throughout the day. Plenty of time to talk and discuss, but then it was down to action to decide and prioritise and they did it super-quick.

Get on with the doing, less of the meeting and you'll make a great start to your project and piece of work. Go. Do.

It's hectic, busy and frantic - for some

A colleague I'm sponsoring by providing mentoring services cancelled our scheduled session for today.

Something or someone else was a higher priority and so I got 'bumped', again. 

The bumping I get over; but in reviewing other comments about the bumping and other reschedules I read words like 'hectic', 'busy' and 'frantic'. 

What's with all the busy-ness? 

According to a nice read in Time Magazine this week it's (ironically) not about the time! It's about bandwidth AND time. They're two different things and we need to slice and dice and handle and manage both of them. You need to be present while you're present or you're not really present!

Also today in my local metropolitan daily there was a piece (via Harvard Business Review) on how we need to stop complaining about how busy we are. 

I enjoyed the 'I'm more important than you' reference because 'I'm busier than you'. 

Yes, I'm busy but I am also incredibly focused on making the best use of the time (and preparing to have plenty of bandwidth). I have needed to run my business, keep my appointments, facilitate two workshops, get married, have two parties, pack and prepare for time away and other 'admin' stuff in the past five days. But I would never be hectic, busy or frantic about it.

I'm leveraging productivity tools and programs, outsourcing services, delegating tasks, prioritising constantly and my favourite... (which I learned in a time management program when I was starting my first job) using 'calculated neglect'. 

Some things just don't or won't get done. Other things are SO gonna get done. 

I'm very conscious of the 'currency' I apply when I'm choosing what I'll do and what I won't do. Is this about now or the future? Is this a short term or longer term win? Will this matter in a day, week, month or year? 

I like reflecting on my values on this too - why I choose and prioritise the way I do. I completed the the Minessence Values Inventory earlier in the year and everything is crystal clear : I know what's important to me. Prioritising is a breeze.

And now to shift the mood of my day from someone not 'picking me', my very next mentoring client was: on time, had completed the set tasks, had specific questions for clarification and was clear about what was next on his agenda. Now THAT was a breeze. I can be impactful, focused and provide great service. I can do my best work - without being hectic, busy or frantic. 

I think being 'busy' is a great opener for another deeper conversation - your priorities, values and what's really important. 

** And as a footnote, some more brilliant and entertaining reading on the topic from Rajesh Setty