Declare Your Independence Day – Top 12 Strategies to Fight Overload

Hound declaring indepence!

Ready to declare your independence from the pandemic of overloaditis?

It’s a highly contagious epidemic, from which no one is immune.

Are you showing any symptoms?

Consider which of the following are true for you:

I feel like:

  • I’m working all the time, but not getting that much accomplished.
  • I’m working on 10 projects at once, but none get finished.
  • My ‘to-do’ list never gets completed.
  • I’m in meetings all day and don’t have time to work.
  • I bring my laptop to meetings and pretend to take notes while surfing the web.
  • I’m answering email all day and don’t have time to work.
  • I answer email during conference calls and in meetings.
  • I have less and less time to plan, not to mention free time.
  • I have less and less time to learn, not to mention creative time.
  • I can never get to things quickly enough.
  • I sit down at my computer and end up doing something different than I planned.
  • I am eating lunch at my desk, mired in my virtual inbox.
  • I make calls while driving, and even send the occasional text, even though I know I shouldn’t.
  • Vacation? What’s that?

Beware Overloaditis.

If you checked off three or more, you’ve got the disease. 8 or more, we need to rush you to an unplugged vacation. All of the above, you need a sabbatical!

But let’s look at what else you can do to give yourself some needed relief. Right now.

  1. First, don’t be ashamed of this disease. You’re not alone. One study puts the number of people reporting feeling burned out at their current job at 77%!
  2. Second, don’t let yourself become like the proverbial boiling frog. The reason I began this article with a list of overload symptoms is to help you become aware of the signs before, bit by bit, they gradually take over your life.
  3. Third, begin to address the symptoms.  Try to take a view from the balcony and see what your personal modus operandi looks like from up there. Productive? Effective? A good use of your time? If you were advising someone else behaving as you do, what counsel would you offer?

There’s a cure.

And what better time than Independence Day (if you’re in the U.S.A. — otherwise, any day is a good day) to set yourself free?

Seriously, don’t just read this list and toss it aside for later. If you’re overloaded, later seldom comes. Right?

Commit to doing just one of the 11 strategies below in the coming week . Personally, I suggest beginning with #1; most of us fool ourselves on this one. I also really like #2; see if you can do that over the next week or so. And #4 is a really good project to put on your calendar this week for some date in the coming month, making a commitment to decluttering.

Or pick your favorite!

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Top Secret to Completing Projects: Balance ‘Done Enough’ with ‘Overdone’

Box of fancy macaronsI’m a huge Seth Godin fan, always in awe of the plethora of wisdom he manages to pack into one pithy post. I save them up, building a collection I can draw upon for inspiration as life, personal and professional, pushes in.

Recently I looked back at What’s in the box? The point of the post is to make us question our quest for perfection and all the needless worrying we put into imagining everything that can possibly go wrong.  Godin encourages us to worry less; just open the box and see what’s in it. Good to consider. Yet this presumes there’s a filled box to be opened.

When we’re in reactive or firefighter mode, we must open the box. The contents must be dealt with, generally with some urgency. So, definitely, perfectionism gets in the way. There’s simply no time for it! But, what about when we’re in proactive mode, building our own projects?

A Greater Challenge Than Opening the Box

Filling and delivering it! This means coming up with useful, delightful, meaningful content your recipient will consider a true gift.  Once you’ve got a nicely filled box — a good gift — it’s time to deliver so the donor’s “feel good” can begin. Alas, this is where the concept of “done enough” vs. “overdone” can rear its ugly head.

Imagine This: You plan to send some cookies to your college sophomore.  You make a batch of gorgeous macarons. Then you worry they’re too fancy. The next day, before putting them in a shipping box, you decide to add some chocolate chip since they’re ‘safe’. The next day you decide, as long as you’re bothering to ship these, you’ll add some brownies and oatmeal because then there’s some to share with roommates. The next day you realize it’s almost Valentine’s Day, so they’ll probably expect some heart-shaped sugar cookies.  Now you’re getting into the “project-ness” of this endeavor, and decide you’ll make a few more kinds so it’ll be a really spectacular presentation! Great fun, yes… but, what has happened to the macarons by the end of the week?

The Old Stuff Gets Stale 

While it’s true sometimes things are not ready for prime time, the reverse is also true. 

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Are You Working on Somebody Else’s Problem?

Sombody Else's ProblemYou are if your modus operandi is fire fighter.

Because, let’s be real, you’re mostly putting out fires set by other people.

It may make you feel like a hero, but it’s not the best way to approach your job on a daily basis. Let me explain by asking you to answer these questions:

  • Do you find yourself spending most of your time responding to other people’s crises?
  • Is your day consumed with disruptive activities?
  • Do you answer email all day long?
  • Do you immediately respond to texts and voicemail?
  • Are you constantly reacting, with little time left for acting?

If so, you (and most likely your co-workers too) are probably not doing the important preventive work that must be done so these urgent fires don’t break out.

Prevent vs. Fight

Anyone can fight a fire;Only YOU can prevent [forest] fires.”

So, get out of the trees for a minute, take a perch at the top of a hill, and get a panoramic birds-eye view of your organization’s forest. Look for the places where danger lurks and fires might break out. For example (this is a non-exclusive list), it could be the way:

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