On my conference tour this spring and summer (SXSW, Possible, Mirren Live, Cannes), I kept hearing a quiet theme between the lines of conversations and presentations. It’s
exhaustion.
There’s been a lot said and written lately about not blocking yourself back-to-back at events, leaving room for the unplanned space where amazing things happen from
connections you never expected to ideas that seemingly emerge out of nowhere.
Prioritizing the conversation, not the stage, is great advice for a whirlwind event. But what about the
whirlwind of our executive lives?
As they do at events and festivals, the most amazing things happen in our lives when we just happen to be there. Unplanned place, time, and
encounter. The side conversation, not the stage presentation. We need to prioritize the conversation in our everyday lives, because ideas don’t spark on schedule.
This is
a metaphor for running an agency without it running you into the ground. I’ve had to let experience teach me some essential steps to staying in balance.
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Reclaim
your recharge space. What is it? And when is it? If you don’t protect time in your day for unplanned moments as a business owner or senior leader, you can easily miss the
sparks.
Stop trying to do everything at once. You’re trying to handle new business with a dozen calls and presentations while troubleshooting a top client
problem and making sure your team is engaged. And then there’s finance coming at you. And AI, of course AI, with more to know and do and try to use and understand, all faster, faster, faster.
That vortex is the irrational pull of our overwhelm economy.
Ground yourself. I learned this at the chaos fest that is Cannes. Instead of racing around, I
picked one place to camp out every day. One hub of activity. What I found was it’s possible to orient and be oriented in a fundamentally disorienting place – provided I’m willing to
get grounded. This has changed my everyday scheduling, because being the fixed point opens up value.
Drop items from your list. The first way to slow things
down is to abandon growth for growth’s sake. That means dropping, not adding, opportunities and responsibility. We’re conditioned to think we need to be on, but more often than not the
extra effort costs us in significant ways. Fatigue. Lack of perspective. Inattention to detail. The solution to overwhelm isn’t operating in overwhelm better; that’s fantasy. Less really
is more.
Create space. “Are you available tomorrow morning?” I look at my calendar and see a half hour sliver between the parade of screen
meetings, and compulsively say yes. Wrong move. It leaves me feeling I need to triple-task during those meetings because I don’t have time to do the work they throw off. The right move:
Stripping away that back to back, expanding the space for networking and thinking.
Thoughtful beats transactional when it comes to important work, and doing something as fast
as I can usually doesn’t leave room for the best I’m capable of. There is no substitute for time in relationships, either. It’s up to me to make the time.
We
say we understand it’s not a badge of honor to never really spend quality time with your family and friends. We say we understand sacrifice isn’t a requisite in leadership. And yet we take
that call during dinner time, and head to the laptop.
We’re all failing some of the fundamentals of self management like putting the phone away and turning off Slack in
“off hours” because we’re gravitating toward “always on”. In addition to exhausting ourselves, we’re burning out our teams. They’ll interpret us disrespecting
our own boundaries as the expectation and price of their allegiance.
Overwhelm is every agency leader’s silent killer. We can overcome it when we accept what it’s
doing to us.