Does anyone out there feel overwhelmed with a seemingly endless firehose flow of emails? Texts? Social media requests? Solicitations? Phone calls? Picking up your phone to make a call, and seeing 3 text messages that you probably ought to respond to, completely forgetting to make the call you initially intended? Back to back video meetings? Phone calls? The occasional “in person” (socially distant) meeting, requiring planning for travel time, actually getting fully dressed, which is a practice we have not exercised consistently in a year?
Is anyone out there attempting to juggle all this with getting actual work done - important work like meeting deadlines, accommodating your clients, building your business through marketing efforts, networking and speaking engagements and, oh yeah, making money doing so?
These are ubiquitous experiences - AND there are a couple of solutions to these implied demands on our time and schedules.
Option 1: Stay on the gerbil wheel, never feeling as though you’ve “finished” your day - keeping people waiting on responses to emails and queries which may in fact be delaying movement on their end because you “just don’t have time” (which is code for: ‘this simply is not a priority for me”). Think: if your basement is flooding, where would you focus your attention? And keeping people waiting is one of the most passive aggressive forms of control there is because what you’re saying is, “Whatever I’m doing is more important than anything you’re doing.” Sorry to be the bearer of that particular piece of insight. Needless to say, probably not the best or ideal option at the risk and expense of self and sanity.
Option 2: Slow down, prioritize, and execute one task at a time. Create space, set boundaries, be intentional with your business time.
Lofty and aspirational goals indeed….but HOW?
Admittedly, once we get going with our days, it’s a challenge not to get caught up in the inescapable deluge of demands or requests on our time. The implied imperative of responding immediately, or worse, ignoring emails, texts, or calls completely, is a balancing act for sure.
Even as I’m writing this piece, I’ve received 2 email discussion threads (involving 4-6 people), 3 requests for donations to worthy causes, 2 notifications for upcoming professional development seminars, one request - involving 4 people - for a document review, several advertisements, at least 7 social media notifications, three requests for meetings, a couple emails and texts from friends and, oh yeah, several of correspondences from clients - all just in the couple of hours I’ve been writing! Trying to balance all of this with my plan for the day: writing this blog, reaching out to prospective clients, following up with existing work partners and colleagues - oh - and actually SEEING clients…..well, even documenting this snapshot in my day makes me feel a little pinched: for time, for maintaining a personal standard of responding promptly and for the (implied) need to reorganize my day to accommodate all of the (implied!) imperatives to get it all done.
FIG has had notepads printed to give to clients which say simply - in big bold red - STOP IT!
Indeed. Stop it.
Taking our own advice, slowing down, breathing, prioritizing which emails, phone calls, texts really require attention and response right now, doing those first, and then realizing that the rest CAN wait. This doesn’t mean ignoring them, but, when necessary, responding with a simple note of, “I can’t get to this right now, and I promise to the minute I have a sec.” And mean it. Establishing dedicated time to write, think, strategize and plan and not checking email or anything else. Whatever it is, it can wait for an hour or 3… or even until tomorrow.
When we take the time to pause and prioritize our goals, (what are we trying to accomplish and how do we want to achieve them?) gives us the opportunity to devote the appropriate and dedicated TIME and attention to detail to each task we’re tackling . ‘Checking something off the list’ is not necessarily the goal - executing our work product thoughtfully, carefully and intentionally is the goal. It may sound counterintuitive to wait on a certain task or querie, but it means you’ve created space for yourself to ‘do it right’ in order to present yourself as a professional who upholds vigorous standards of quality..
As we’ve talked about in the past, we’re living in an immediate gratification society, but let’s remember: back in the day we conducted correspondence via the United States Postal Service which often could take 3-7 days to reach our intended recipient. Then the fax machine came onto the scene, which was quicker, but still took some time as it could only transmit one page at a time and documents needed to be typed up or written long hand (what’s THAT?)......and whaddya know? Business still got done!
Creating space for ourselves and buying ourselves some time provides us the opportunity to think about what we’re doing and not just mindlessly and automatically reacting to whatever is being thrown at us. We are setting a standard of Action vs. Reaction, accomplishing, managing, and achieving one goal at a time effectively and with attention. We are creating space for ourselves by intentionally setting real boundaries which essentially defines who we are and who we are not.
Sadly there is no pill to fix this. Changing behaviour and habits is a challenge and does take practice, but I promise, it’s well worth it for our productivity (and sanity!).
SO….are we gerbils?
Until next time…….