Pause Blog On Overload, Overwhelm & Life In General

REFLECTION: I’m a big fan of Marshall Goldsmith and his thinking about human behaviour and leadership. And so it was no surprise that his brief article in the November 2008 Harvard Management Update caught my eye.

The article focuses on a common roadblock to advancing change in our lives.

Goldsmith refers to it as a fantasy held tightly by good people with great intentions. The fantasy delusion reads something like this: “I’m desperately busy at the moment. My life is out of control. My challenges are unique. The situation is temporary. Once the worst of it is over, THEN I’ll get started on X.”  

Does this script play in your life? I know it makes guest appearances in mine. Read More…

Posted under Overload & Overwhelm, Pause E-zines

REFLECTION:  Are you familiar with the term, Hail Mary? Devout Catholics will recognize a Hail Mary is a Rosary prayer. A struggling football quarterback will throw a Hail Mary in the dying seconds of a losing game. He’ll toss the ball as long and deep as possible. desperately hoping to connect with a receiver in the end zone to put a few more points on the scoreboard.

As I work with clients to resolve their challenges of Overload and Overwhelm, it seems that Hail Marys are becoming more common in the workplace, too. Read More…

Posted under Overload & Overwhelm, Pause E-zines

REFLECTION: It was late in the evening just before Hallowe’en. I was chatting on the phone with my daughter, and had just recited the litany of tasks tackled so far that day. It had been a demanding day in the office. I had followed up my post-work exercise class by running several errands on the way home. And, I’d invested a couple of hours getting things ready around the house to host a guest for the weekend.

As I finished giving report on my day, I heard myself say, “And I still HAVE TO carve the pumpkin before I can go to bed.”

Wise offspring played back my very own words. “You HAVE TO carve the pumpkin?” I could hear the raised eyebrow in her voice. She knows how much I enjoy creating those Hallowee’en jacks.

And in that moment, I realized I’d just loaded myself down with yet another DB – a Discretionary Burden. Read More…

Posted under Life Balance, Overload & Overwhelm, Pause E-zines

Posted under Life Balance, Life in General, Miscellaneous, Travel

REFLECTION:  I’d bet good money – even my own – that every single one of you takes a run at setting your own priorities on a regular basis. You scratch out that ‘to do’ list on paper or in the back of your mind. You star a few key actions. You assign the biggies an A or mark them #1. 

And more often than not, you find that the number of items that rank high on the list is still way beyond your capacity, given the resources (time, money, energy , etc) you have at your disposal.

This mismatch between workload and available resources is as an all too common concern. In fact, it’s no surprise that it ranks top of the list of causes of overload and overwhelm on my recent survey.

What I do find interesting, though, is that the approach that sits top of the list of best strategies for addressing the challenge of Overload and Overwhelm is ‘Resetting Collective Expectations’. Read More…

Posted under Overload & Overwhelm, Pause E-zines