Posts

What Not To Do

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Perfectionising, Distractifying, Trivianeering and 4 more things that should be on your Not-to-do list

I’m writing this post as the run-up to Christmas is well and truly underway. For a change I seem to be on top of everything I’m supposed to be doing and am actually feeling quite festive relatively early (“Ho, Ho Ho.”). But this is a potentially very stressful time of year. As one study, which I first saw in The Guardian newspaper puts it, Christmas can actually give you a heart attack!

It’s no surprise that the pressure from financial and appraisal year-ends can add to our stress at work. Nor that everybody suddenly realises they’ve set the end of this month as a deadline for an awful lot of crucial objectives and that there’s still quite a bit to do! Combine that with the need to attend all those important social/networking/team-building events and (in the northern hemisphere at least) cold dark nights and grey days, and no wonder we can get a bit overwhelmed.

Perhaps a good time then to consider your Not-to-do list. And if you’re reading this some other time of year and you don’t have a Not-to-do list – why on earth not!? Here’s what should be on it:

Perfectionising
Not everybody remembers that Pareto’s Law works in two ways. The first is what we all know – 80% of our results are delivered by the first 20% of our efforts. But crucially for your Not-to-do list, the last 20% of the results you can achieve will take 80% of your effort – and it’s a parabolic curve, so that the further you aim, the tougher it gets! You’ve got to be really, really sure that anything you’re working on needs to be more than 80% perfect before you push past that point.

Distractifying
How easy is it these days to distractify ourselves?
(Don’t go looking for that word in your dictionary, I just made it up to see if I could catch you out). Checking emails, tweeting, facebooking, LinkedIn-ing, all from the comfort of your phone, even before we’ve counted actual, human, In Real Life interruptions and distractifications. Don’t do it, Stay-focussed. Rest properly when you need to rest and only check emails a couple of times a day if you can.

Trivianeering
When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory allegedly replied, “Because it’s there.” This is maybe a good reason for mountaineering, but I’m not convinced that “because it was there” is anywhere near being a good enough reason for doing things at work. Climbing Everest in those days wasn’t easy or trivial, so make sure that you’re not adding things to your to-do list just because they’re ‘there’ or are easy to do. Some mountains are important, others are just trivia.

Strugglesting
‘Strugglesting’ – intransitive verb: ‘Trying to do something but not actually getting it done; struggling without making progress.’ I don’t know about you, but this one does occasional catch me, like an unseasonal fly stuck to flypaper, I’ll sometimes keep on strugglesting for way too long. Put it on your Not-to-do list. Either break the task down so it’s small enough to get something done, or go get whatever resource you need to be able to do it. Like Yoda said, “NO! Try Not! Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Worryings
Another great thief of time and effort. Natural as it is, Worry. Never. Helps. Leo Buscaglia wrote: “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” Take action to mitigate what’s worrying you, or learn to peacefully co-exist with your concerns. Put Worryings on the Not-to-do list.

Rambling
Although it’s one of my favourite Led Zeppelin songs, rambling on should be right up there on our Not-to-do lists. Don’t have unfocused meetings or calls. Don’t meet without an agenda and don’t forget to agree some specific actions as a result.

Dramacating
Don’t get dragged into other people’s dramas. Focus on what you need to do, on what only you can do, on what is best done just by you. There’s a great Polish idiom which is said with a shrug when there’s a risk of getting dragged into the mess of an unnecessary drama: “Not my circus; not my monkeys.”

As usual, please leave me a comment if they’re still open below, or tweet me @NickRobCoach. What’s on your Not-to-do list?
And have a great festive season whatever time of year it is.




Sweet Spot

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Getting into the “Sweet Spot” – right on top of your game, in the moment and making a difference

I’ve been thinking again recently about what it takes to get into that “Sweet Spot” – the point where you’re feeling right on top of your game, totally in the moment and like you’re actually making a difference.

There’s lots of things involved in achieving this it seems and those who are really interested could do worse than read the book “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Although I actually found this to be an ultimately slightly frustrating book, because it concludes, more or less, that you can’t actually ‘achieve’ a flow-state, it’s something that just happens to you. And that isn’t really good enough for the control freak in me!

Seeing as I have a great laboratory in my coaching practice, and clients who are crazy and willing enough to play around with this stuff, I’ve been looking at two of the dimensions that I reckon might required to get into that Sweet Spot. Have a go with these yourself if you’re up for some experimenting, and let me know if it helps you find your own Sweet Spot.

The first dimension is our Comfort Level

It’s my experience that one of the best ways to regard this, is to think in terms of familiarity. That is, the extent to which you’ve been there and done that – or not.

 


Studies have shown that being too comfortable means we don’t build up or maintain the resilience required to handle life and work. I’m calling this the ‘nilstress’ position.

At the other end of the scale, is the ‘distress’ position, where we’re so far out of our comfort zones, that our challenges are not able to be resolved through coping or adaptation. This may lead to anxiety, withdrawal, and depressive behavior.

In the middle, is the point that psychologist Hans Selye labelled ‘Eustress‘ – ‘Good Stress’. This occurs when we’re slightly pushed out of our comfort zones, but are not overwhelmed by it. Our goals are familiar enough but still require us to stretch. This fosters challenge and motivation and is indicated by hope and active engagement. (But note that even good stress which carries on for too long, i.e. is ‘chronic’, can be damaging to people’s health).

The second dimension to consider in your experiments is Chunksize

Chunksize refers to the size of tasks or goals you’re working on. As much as anything, it’s about how you measure or perceive that you’re making progress.

Set your Chunksize too small, and it feels like you’re crawling along, never actually getting anywhere, and just forced to work on things that are Meaningless and don’t make a difference.

Set your Chunksize too big, and every task, goal or problem just becomes totally overwhelming. If you’re stuck at this end, it may be you’ve developed a nasty case of Meaningitis!

In the middle there is the point we want to get to. At this Meaningful point, our tasks and goals are broken down into a size where we can see that we’re making progress. And where we can predict with a reasonable amount of certainty how much time and effort it’ll take to achieve our next objective.

If you can manage to put all of this together, then it might just be that you’ve hit the Sweet Spot. You’ve got challenges that take you far enough out of your comfort zone to be slightly unfamiliar and that require you to stretch. And you’ve got a chunksize set just right, so that you can see and predict how you’re making meaningful progress.

I hope you get a chance to play around with these two dimensions. Please drop me a line to let me know what you find, even (or especially) if your experience is different to mine!