Working and overworking - How much work is enough?

'Burnout is an occupational phenomenon,' said the World Health Organisation this year.

Yet here we are working harder, longer and under more pressure, stress and expectations than ever. The sweat of prolonged activity; you feel it at the gym. And then the gym session finishes, it’s recovery time.

But when does work let up? How much more effort, hours and days will you put into this thing, this project, presentation, report or ... you know, the *thing*!? A deadline is a due date. It doesn’t mean 'work 24/7' until the due date. But we get drawn in, believing more work effort will lead to a better result.

It doesn’t.

Avgoustaki and Frankort's University of London Research showed the implications of work effort can lead to higher stress, less satisfaction and recognition, fewer opportunities, less security.

What? This 'work' actually seems to work in reverse? Want a productivity gain? You need a clock, a timer, a calendar to see that you’ve worked too long on this.

We are all overworking on something. Check what you've done so far; is it good enough? Get another opinion or two. 

There’s thinking and there’s overthinking

How much thinking is enough?

I'm reading a book by an author who’s a marketing ninja guru genius and they keep letting the reader know how much thinking they do. The author's stories are about the times when they were:

- thinking about possible scenarios

- thinking about the numbers

- thinking about solutions

- thinking about ideas

- thinking about the questions clients and colleagues might ask

- thinking about what other people might be thinking.

When we do this thinking, the problem is we are mostly OVER-THINKING. We are such wasteful thinkers.

We disguise thinking as:

Wondering

Imagining

Conjuring

Reasoning

Analysing

Rationalising

Reflecting

Contemplating

Deciding

Judging

Assessing

Evaluating … and

Mentally rehearsing.

We mentally rehearse scenarios trying to ‘prepare’ or ‘be ready’ for what lies ahead. We default to overthinking believing it's a useful way to solve a problem.

But calling an end to overthinking could be way better for us.

Move in to action sooner; to get real evidence and results - not imagined.

Q: What do you often overthink? 

Gathering, collecting, searching & researching

It can feel so good, so busy. But there’s a time cost to all that searching and re-searching. Working on a project, report or presentation, we look for information, data, stats and studies to support ideas, claims and points. (This isn’t the university, academic, ‘it’s my job’ kind of researching, completing a PhD or other missive.)

The searching and re-searching is a never-ending journey we take looking for the perfect quote or the most awesome reference.

But how much is enough? When will you have read enough, checked or gathered enough data and evidence?

How will you know?

Most of us don’t know.

We keep going until a deadline, exhaustion, boredom or frustration.

The tip is: work out what you need. Create a shopping list. The most economical shopping is done with a list. Let's do the same. The search is never-ending, looking for the best or better, perhaps hoping that ’the next one’ will be ’the one’, the most perfect source. Sounds like a gambler banking on the next big win.

It's not 'no research'; it's being aware when you're not stopping searching.

Q: What are you searching and researching right now? 

Look out for loopers!

Distill the essence

Of everything you’ve covered in a meeting, conversation or workshop, what's the essence of that, up to now? This is a progress summary or snapshot of where you are.

We don’t use summaries anywhere near enough at work. As a result, we leave people hanging, wondering 'WTF is going on?'

When you tick off and make sense of chunks of discussion, you're truly making sense. We close off that part and able to move on to the next. If it's left open, unresolved, unsummarised, you can't move forward. You keep looping back until it's done.

The film 'Looper' starring Emily Blunt showed a loop in a loop of people coming back to life, to the past, to wipe others off the planet. We’re not getting that evil with sensemaking thank you, but what a great example of how you can lose track of now, the past, the present and the future because of broken loops.

Got ‘a looper’ in your meeting or workshop, someone who doesn't move on? You need to make sense quick! It’s not their fault; please try harder 😃

Deduce the meaning

When meetings and workshops get messy and don’t seem to make sense:

🌕 Clarify the Content

🌕 Traverse the Breadth

🌕 Explore the Depth.

And then… Deduce the meaning.

As you go into depth on a topic, try and get to meaning, understanding and comprehension as quickly as possible. The game is not to guess. The game or race is to meaning. The sooner you can get the meaning of things - as you progress - the better progress, the better sense you'll make.

Help people understand. Get to the meaning of what this is about.

But how would you know if it's making sense to them? You ask. Ask not 'Is this making sense?' or 'Does this make sense?' Both are tragic closed yes/no answers.

Ask 'What sense is this making right now? or 'What sense are you getting from this?' These are open questions, inviting people to make a summary of the meaning they're getting right now.

Q: How do you work out what the meaning of something is?