The load we create and allow

If you or your team are still having back-to-back meetings throughout the day, stop! Please?

The blend of one meeting into the next does nothing for cognitive load coping. Our overload stays in overload because there’s no chance to ... unload. 

That means when you want to get great ideas and contributions from the team, they won’t have them. 

When you want them to work on planning, collaborating or decision-making, they won’t have the space and attention for it. 

We may think people are disconnected or disengaged when they could be cognitively overloaded.

For clearer and fresher thinking, invite, welcome and encourage breaks between (and within) meetings. 

Even a few minutes makes a difference. 

Create a break:
⏰ Start meetings off the hour at 10 past. 
⏰ Finish meetings prior to the hour. 

Working back-to-back isn’t smarter, particularly when you’re already overloaded. 

It might feel busy and important. 

Instead, it’s overloading the system... our system. Us. 

Overwhelm that comes from the future

It’s not even here yet and we’re already thinking about it!

The workshop that’s next week. 
The presentation we have to finish. 
The job interview we’re preparing for. 
The proposal for the client. 
The book to read. 

It’s all in the future ... and our thinking about ‘that which is yet to come’ adds so much to our feelings of overload and overwhelm. 

Running scenarios, preparing options and imagining plan As, Bs and Cs : it all takes time, attention and energy. 

Check to see if you’ve started working on something before you’ve, you know... actually started working on it!

Don’t dismiss all that thinking as ‘nothing’ or ‘just’ thinking. It’s adding to our cognitive overload and our sense of overwhelm. 

No wonder we feel the burden of too much going on!

Catch yourself - and your team - if you’re heading off on a thinking tangent or going deep into a wombat hole that may take even more effort to get out of. 

Notice. 

Noticing where our attention and focus is - in the past, the present or the future - is a powerful behaviour. 

It’s a practical thing to do to reduce the feels when ‘it’s all too much’. 

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...

Try again tomorrow

If something is tricky, sticky or difficult to decide or work on, leave it for now and try again tomorrow.

We do wonderful sorting, synthesising, problem solving and integrating when we are asleep. So we can let go of it today and tackle it again tomorrow knowing our abilities can be even better.

For the procrastinators among us, who often leave the sprint to the finish line until the last moment because ‘pressure works for us’ well, we’re missing out on the overnight gold mining that gets done.

If we can get started on a task, project or activity a day sooner than we were planning, we can let a night’s sleep do some of the genius work for us. All that automatic sorting, searching and sensemaking could be more productive, creative and effective than the drag of pushing on through.

Another reason to seek out decent sleep: it makes our ideas, thinking and solutions better.

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.