How joining a friend’s virtual coffee salon, help me deal with our autumn workload anxiety

”Amongst other things we discussed today: the tyranny of the zeitgeist and whether life was better portrayed as an infinite chocolate box or a never ending obstacle course. I suspect we will be going back to philosophical questions and food analogies again next month.”

What a great summary of the virtual salon conversation, hosted by my cherished friend @kami Lamakan that was dedicated to addressing my question:

“In every end of August conversation I am having with different teams I keep hearing the same thing mentioned with an increased sense of anxiety: get ready for a crazy amount of workload this autumn. Surely this cannot be right. We cannot all be dreading the autumn, expecting insane workloads with seemingly little or no control over what will be happening to us all? ”

I share what emerged in the conversation with the hope that you can add more ideas in the comments about the best approaches to correct this generalised state of anxiety.

1. Is it the amount of work, or our attitude to work and how we approach it?

And this is where the chocolate box analogy started: it was suggested that instead of looking at an overwhelming number of zoom calls and projects coming up, we see them as a delicious box of chocolates (a packed box of them would make us all happier) eager to try them all. It is that eagerness to see what we will discover in each call, learn from each new project, develop in ourselves and in the people we work with that could influence our attitude. Our workload would not change, it is our attitude, how we face what is coming our way that would make the difference.

2. Checking the speed of execution

Should we always rush and hurry to finish quickly? Is that speed of execution really necessary or something that we think others expect from us? And connected to the above should we really do (fast) everything that we are asked to do, or do (well and enjoying the process) less than we are asked to do?

What would happen if we did less but excellent work? What would be the consequences? (This by the way we decided unfortunately did not apply to doctors in the emergency room of hospitals)

So should we change our attitude and keep doing lots (too much = raise anxiety)?

Should we reply to every email? What would happen if we decided to just skip a few and not feel guilty about it? In fact one member of the group admitted to the sheer joy of not replying to an increasing number of emails, the liberating effect that is having on him.

3. Most importantly: who decides how much to do and how fast?

We agreed that all to often we do all that we are asked to do either because we are brought up that way, or to seek the approval of our peers / bosses. And too rarely are we asking ourselves if this is actually what we should be doing.

As a society what we value in terms of productivity: more is better, more hours in the office (tough one to measure right now), more emails replied, more documents produced, more calls organized... really?!

Covid is a good excuse to re evaluate what we value, the reward system is currently perverse and one person gave us the example of academic work where publishing is key, but in publications that no one reads, the push is just to get grants, not create real value useful for many. So perverse that this person confided to us that ... they were about to leave their post to “pursue real impact, to really achieve my life goal of contributing to society’s food production needs, instead of wasting time writing and seeking grants.”

So worth stopping to think why we do everything that comes our way and really thinking if it is praise we are seeking and even then, if doing everything is the best way to achieve that not so healthy goal?

4. Releasing the pressure of doing it and enjoying the process of doing it

This was another attitude shift that we shared. We even added external elements that could help that very healthy transition from simple walks in the park, to a more ambitious participant son of a family of mountaineers who offered the exercise of climbing mountains as a great pressure release mechanism.

We all played with a range of ideas starting from taking ownership of our days and deciding for flex time, doing more things in the times that are right for us ... in one case even taking without any guilt one full day off.

5. We should aim for extremes, there are rhythms, we can find rhythms somewhere in between.

Looking for and then aiming to live the right balance, to “get into a rhythm”, to avoid extremes that only create disruption for us and for those around us we agreed was a good way forward.

What we want to do is exactly that, moving away from a situation of extremes and instead embrace the rhythm of life, of movement, of activity that better suits us. Actively seeking it and tweaking our lives to at the very least get closer to it.

6. “Don’t you feel the world is run by hot topic, we rush to cover what’s hot and never slow down and stick to something?”

The other mad rush we commented on what this increasingly shortening attention span to topics, very briefly covering them, quickly, going for whatever is the flavour of the moment is what gets funded, it is what gets worked on.

A participant working in the Blockchain field admitting to benefiting greatly to the exposure and all of the sudden need that everyone seemed to have on testing, understanding, using, exploiting Blockchain solutions and the mad rush to make things happen and satisfy crazy high levels of demand ... until the next hot topic arises.

We don’t seem to have the patience to enjoy and go deep into timeless topics. These being the areas that are most likely to create real benefit to more people, over a longer time as they do not expire. Knowledge and experience in timeless topics is definitely worth stopping for.

Again maybe finding rhythm : timely and timeless , addressing both.

7. Stopping for conversations that mean something, and create a lot.

“You know when someone does not perform, does not work well. The temptation is to set up all shorts of processes and HR structure for improvement but we all too often to just talk to that person, have an open and sincere dialogue to help them improve. I am having really good conversations with my employees.” One great experience of doing less (structuring) that worked, reduced anxiety, improved work.

8. What if we have a really beautiful conversation and during the exchange someone feels so good they share a special private secret with us?

“So half way through a conversation this guy stops, then tells me “I want to share something really personal with you, something I never told anyone before, I have this real deep passion for this [name of obscure music band] . Every time I hear one of their songs I stop everything and literally go crazy and release all I have pent up, dancing like a maniac”. Now I listened to an entire album of their music and it really does not do anything for me. Should I admit to this?”

To with the entire group emphatically shook their heads with loud noooooos. Everyone agreed how taking the time to allow the conversation to get personal, create that special sharing moment that was offered as a gift, a very special gift that united two people.

A gift that opens to vulnerability, that creates a bond, that does not require for a return gift, for a reaction, for an approval.

Instead a channel of open reciprocity was created where new flow can happen both ways,

8. That strong guiding star, what I really want to see happening and help make happen.

Do we have a clear or at least clear-ish idea of what we really want to see happen and help to make happen?

That clarity is what made that one participant mentioned earlier, make her life-changing career-ending decision. And she felt deeply great about this not at all worried about the opinion, perception of others and instead connecting to those values at the core of who she is.

She, and all of us, are now looking forward to a great autumn.