By Colleen Gallion
My client was almost in tears. “I don’t know how I will EVER catch up,” she said. “It feels like the more hours I put in, the less I end up getting done.” Like most of my clients, she is successful, driven, and smart. She was also on an express train to burnout if things didn’t change.
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After taking her through some exercises to help her become calmer and more grounded, I asked, “If your energy was a gas gauge, where would it be?” She paused, “Oh, I don’t know…maybe a quarter full?” Now, I wasn’t a math major, but I’m pretty sure that 100% of 25% is 25%. I asked her, “Looking back at what you wanted to accomplish this past week, what percentage of your to-do list got done?” She immediately started to laugh as the lightbulb went on. “About 25%!” she said.
The hard truth is that we can’t give what we don’t have, and no amount of teeth gritting or brow furrowing is going to change that. So, how do you fill your tank and still do whatever needs to be done?
Feed, water, and rest your body
The brilliant psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times entitled “Your Brain is Not for Thinking.” Barrett explained how our brain's primary function is to keep us alive. All of the conscious functions we consider “thinking” are like extracurricular activities, or nice-to-haves if there is extra energy once the essentials are taken care of.
This means that if you want to use your brain for thinking, creating, and leading, your brain needs you to be well fed, well hydrated, and well rested. If any of these are in a deficit, you cannot be at your mental best.
Question urgency
It's natural to have a visceral reaction when we see an email or text with the words URGENT or ASAP, especially when accompanied by a large number of exclamation points. If something is urgent, it must be important, right? Not necessarily. I am typing this at 4:54 p.m. Two sausage dogs are currently staring at me and whining as though they haven’t been fed in days. Is their desire to eat urgent to them? Absolutely. Will they starve if they have to wait a few minutes? Absolutely not.
If you are unclear about the real urgency of a request, use this simple strategy to help you prioritize the request appropriately:
• Take three deep breaths and focus on the sensation of the air entering and leaving your nose. This helps your body reset from the stress response triggered by the urgent request.
• Determine when the request must be fulfilled. The words urgent and ASAP appear nowhere on my clock. I’ve never had to be somewhere at urgent o’clock on the last ASAP of the month. If the person making the request cannot give you a deadline that appears on a calendar or a clock, then propose one. Many people use these words as their “fast pass” to move any request to the front of the queue. But you aren’t Mickey Mouse and this isn’t Disneyland. It’s perfectly acceptable to agree about a date and time for a real deadline.
• Practice triage. If you face competing requests that are genuinely urgent and important, take a moment to consider the consequences of failing to deliver on time. Let importance decide what you do first, not how loudly someone is yelling or how many exclamation points they use.
Decide which balls to drop
Like most natural resources, you are finite. You will drop the ball. If you don’t believe me, think back on the last 24 hours and note anything you wanted to do that didn’t get done. I promise there is at least one. When we accept that we can’t do it all, we can strategize about which balls get dropped based on the consequences.
In my mind, a dropped ball can do one of three things — bounce, dent, or shatter:
• Filing my expense report is a BOUNCE, because nothing major happens if I don’t do that today.
• Paying my homeowners association dues is a DENT. If I pay them after they are due, I’ll get a late penalty, but that’s about it.
• Filing my taxes is a SHATTER. If I don’t do it, I could face fines and potential jail time.
If you skimmed this article because you don’t have time, just read this: You are the only you we will ever have. You are a precious, rare, finite resource. If you care for yourself accordingly, the world will be better for it. I promise.
COLLEEN GALLION is an ICF-certified professional coach whose passion is supporting entrepreneurs and founders in building healthy and sustainable teams. For more information, visit www.gallioncoaching.com.
