What Lies Beneath
It’s a no-brainer, but we all forget sometimes. The nagging, unresolved, unfinished stuff rolling around in our heads saps our energy. It keeps us from being as effective as we could be because we’re not fully focused on what we’re doing. For the same reason, it keeps us from enjoying our lives as fully as we could — we’re just not all there for the good stuff.
Recent findings in brain research reveal that multi-tasking is not an efficient way to work. Being preoccupied with one thing while doing another is a kind of multi-tasking.
While I’m writing this blog post, I’m also thinking about an extended conversation I’m having with my husband. The background noise of the conversation clogs my writing process and slows me down. I would be well served to either finish the conversation with him or table it until some specific future time. If I were to do that, all the energy currently tied up in it would become available to me. I certainly could use it.
Since finishing the conversation is not an option right NOW, I’m going to plan to do so (or at least resume it ) this evening when we’ll both be home and not working. Making this decision should open up some bandwidth for me. I’ll report in at the end of writing this post.
Meanwhile, I want to offer some anecdotal evidence for the point I’m making.
The nagging, unfinished business under the surface for an accounting consultant I know was that three people on her team were not performing their jobs to the standard she thought was appropriate. She wasn’t addressing it in any way other than fretting about it.
Once she articulated it as a problem, she could address it proactively. For each of these employees, she drafted the specifics of what needed to change and initiated conversations with them in which she made it very clear to them what she expected and that this was not optional in any way.
While she had had prior conversations with them about performance, she felt she had been too vague and general. This time around, she was absolutely clear.
The result was that two of the employees immediately started performing to the standard and have been doing so ever since: problem solved. The third one required training and supervision to perform to the standard, and this training and supervision is currently underway in a structured, scheduled, and monitored configuration.
The secondary results are that the consultant:
1. no longer feels preoccupied with this issue and has more focus and energy to do her work
2. is pleased with the work she did as a manager
3. is thrilled with the better work that her two employees are doing
4. will have an easier time doing this the next time it comes up in her professional life (and alas, it will)
My bottom line advice is to NOTICE what’s sapping your energy, what’s rolling around under the surface, what’s stressing you. And then deal with it.
And yes, I have to say that my own experience of writing this post improved once I decided I would resume my extended conversation tonight. That allowed me to essentially drop it for now, and that was a good move.
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