Ever had a “Monday” on any day of the week? Ever had your day perfectly planned, scheduled and organized only to have all your intended “to-do’s”: meetings, calls, oh yeah, actual “work,” utterly blown up by an unexpected interruption, complication, interference? Ever had someone insert themselves into your day with their drama, troubles or lack of planning (real or self-inflicted), requiring you to shelve your carefully laid out day(s) and requiring you to stop whatever you’re doing for their fire drill?
Yeah, us too.
When I was working in the fashion industry in New York a million years ago, I had a sign above my desk which read “The lack of planning on your part does not necessitate a crisis on mine” (salty, I realize, but it WAS New York in the late 80’s!). “Life” happens and people we work with can have the incalculable ability to hijack our time and projects. Unexpected aberrations to our days by others….well….happen. What’s tricky about them is how we handle ourselves: our annoyance, frustration and indignation at having to drop everything to put out whatever inferno is raging through no fault of our own. We’re all human, we all have reactions, we all get royally pissed off when our days are upended by someone else’s carelessness, lack of planning, foresight or just plain incompetence. OUR FIG work begins, however, when we start to tease apart the feelings from the actions necessary to move things along, figure out a plan of action (pull out the hose, douse the fire) and then get back to our days. WAY easier said than done, especially when YOU have deadlines, commitments and obligations that YOU need to attend to in order to maintain YOUR standard of professionalism (hence the sign above my desk). Striking this balance of feeling annoyed and acting to resolve whatever is at issue is delicate and can be precarious.
Oftentimes, these commandeering events involve perceptions, opinions and assumptions about our personal notions of how things should be done, sometimes they’re honest oversights and sometimes people are just inserting their “crazy” into our lives. Nonetheless, in these instances, we lose control of our days, which is uncomfortable and irritating, especially for busy professionals who generally are operating on pretty tightly chartered calendars.
What to do? What to do? Whew, deep breath. In cases like these, suppression is our friend (we can throw things later). Suppression is an intentional, voluntary action our brains employ when we simply do not have the bandwidth to deal with an emotion or feeling (not to be confused with repression which is an involuntary, psychological defense mechanism our brains use to protect us, by essentially shutting our brains down because of overwhelming or overpowering situations that we are simply ill-equipped to manage). We need to suppress the feelings, and act intentionally with clarity, focus and a surgical approach to sorting out the hijacking for our own peace of mind and reclaim our days. None of these attributes are well supported by emotional reactions or indulging in gratuitous analysis of what a pain in the ass so-and-so is and the bomb he/she lobbed into our days - that’ll just agitate us and the feelings further. SO, (still breathing, it’s important!), prioritize your work, and assess the relative importance of whatever it is someone has launched into your day? Can it wait? Or is the proverbial basement flooding (always a good measure of something's importance)? What task is time sensitive and requires immediate attention: Is someone standing by to meet? Is there a deadline in an hour? Does that call need to happen in 15 minutes, or can you reschedule without negative ramifications or sounding flaky? Think: what needs to be done, by whom, by when? Then plan, delegate and execute. You’ll feel better for the consciousness and tasks well-completed. After the burning embers of the crisis are extinguished and you’ve made it through the day(s), this is the time to let the feelings rip, but away from the offending party!! The feelings are and will remain inside you until they are released, whether you like it or not, so, as I like to say, “better out than in.” Go home, call a trusted friend and vent, scream into a pillow, throw a pillow (just not the cat), say (yell!) every cuss word you know and pretend you’re saying them to the “awful” person who threw your day into chaos (for the record, they’re probably not the terrible, horrible, obnoxious human you’re mad at right now - but their actions were - in your opinion). Once you’ve exhausted yourself and expelled all the “ick” and frustration of the day, and when you feel up to it, it’s time to perform a post mortem of the situation: What actually happened? Why did it happen? Could it have been avoided? What could you have done differently? What will you need to convey so that this type of thing doesn’t happen again? How can you establish the necessary boundaries to save yourself from future drama? What needs to be said and how can you say it in a constructive way in order to convey just how disruptive that particular bomb was to your day, and build a consensus for moving forward productively? We are responsible for ourselves and our own actions. Recognizing a breach of our own boundaries and intentionally communicating them is up to us if we don’t want a repeat performance.
Again (I know, broken record!) we believe we can say anything to anyone with the right time (not when you’re pissed!), tone (after you’ve had a good cry or scream and are calm!), intention (no rerun of the very bad day!) and words (try not to hurl the F bomb, that tends to go badly).
Look, life happens to all of us. Some things are within our control and some not so much. The trick is: put aside the feelings (temporarily), manage the immediate situation, expel the feelings in a safe controlled place and figure out what you can control and mitigate future disruptions so it doesn’t happen again. Easy right? Not at all, initially, but, as with everything, becomes relatively effortless - with practice.
Until next time……..