Reflections on "Getting a Grip" on an Urgently Hectic Life
I’m moving to a new house and office soon: subtext—I’m plowing through tons of stuff…especially in the office. The journey through old files, documents, reports, notes, calendars, to- do lists and all the things that need to be sorted, scanned or tossed is both intriguing and frightening! Did I really do all that work?
As a philanthropy and organizational strategy consultant I have been enjoying a significant supporting role to some important shifts in the social sector as we know it—our changing concept of social innovation; the transition of our sector online; the emergence of a new generation of philanthropy driven by the tech boom; the health, wellness and contemplative practice revolution; a redefinition of community leadership; the maturing of a social justice philanthropy movement especially efforts by women to generate philanthropy to accompany the social change agenda of the women’s and marginalized gender(s) movement itself. And, of course, there’s more! What a whirlwind we live in each day as the social sector absorbs the shocks from other social, economic and environmental forces and responds with both salves and solutions. If you are working in the social sector you have a starring role…no sidelines for us! You also are likely pushed to your limits of endurance for the amount of work you can tolerate.
To get it all done, many of us have spent years dashing from place to place…meeting to meeting. Some of us have stayed close to home and others have racked-up millions of frequent flyer miles around the world trying to make change happen. We’ll do just about anything and go anywhere for our social justice dreams!
In the big cleanup I unearthed records of trips for client meetings, collaborative gatherings, conferences, training sessions, board meetings. I can see from some past calendar pages that I barely touched down at home between commitments. Just opening up one random month-at-a-glance calendar page I could see the pace: a meeting with women donors in New Mexico, then rushing home to turn around and go to a client meeting and social sector research conference in Capetown, then back to the USA via California for a board meeting, then to Washington D.C. to facilitate a planning retreat for a client, and then New York City for another board facilitation. For years the months flew by like that!
Of course in the last year, COVID slowed us down. I mourned the pandemic and all of the illness, death, isolation and hardship that came with it. But I also secretly enjoyed facing each day knowing I didn’t have to run like clockwork, especially facing airports, hotels and daunting schedules. Laundry could get done leisurely and I could cook dinner whenever. I went to my desk everyday and enjoyed the luxury of being in a treasured work space where I could be thoughtful, mindful and productive.
I realize that the challenge now for many of us—especially those who may have the continuing option of “working from home”—will be deciding how to step on the accelerator without just reverting to the same old speed and the same old relentless meeting schedule. Most colleagues have shared with me that they learned so much from the COVID lockdown: their powers of discernment are sharper. They say they are better at knowing which tasks demand meetings and a more intense social experience; which meetings could be accomplished online and which really do need physical presence; when travel is essential and when it is not. They claim that they are putting their COVID learning to good use by prioritizing in more effective ways. They claim that these new insights will prevent them from jumping back into the same pace and stress as before.
And yet…in a coaching session last week my client was struggling to express how she felt about taking on new ideas and methods of working with her team. At some point—to help me understand her life—she revealed that in the previous week her schedule had included 25 meetings! We did some quick math and agreed that each meeting requires likely 3 hours of total commitment—time to prepare; time to attend or facilitate; time to do the followup. If she had no other work than the meetings, she already would be working 75 hours in one week to handle 25 meetings! And, for her, the work day often feels like it begins once the meetings are over and she can then get to her desk and do thinking, planning, writing necessary for the accomplishment of other important components of her job.
In her case, the organization she works for has a social change/social justice mission along with providing direct services. As one of the organization’s leaders she is a “shock absorber,” frequently picking up loose ends; starting up new initiatives; managing about a dozen case managers and supporting the Executive Director in doing the impossible every day. In her situation, it is hard to imagine how to apply the brakes and how to ration precious time for the right meetings.
A tool that she and other clients have found useful as they all try to handle the speed of new demands post-COVID is the simple matrix that intersects importance and urgency. The key to survival is understanding what is truly urgent AND important and distinguishing things that are important but will thrive on a planned schedule while also finding the courage to decrease the share of time spent on those things that are neither important nor urgent!
Give it a try! Write down what you are trying to get done this week and place each task/goal into one of the four spaces on the matrix. Where is your time going?
If everything you are doing is “URGENT” you might want to contact SWIM for some strategic planning and possibly some help on designing better meetings.
If a lot of things are in the Unimportant boxes, you might want to ask SWIM consultants for some professional coaching on how to get back your efficiency, effectiveness and flow!
You can contact SWIM and look at both the services offered and the downloadable tools by clicking HERE
Author: Stephanie Clohesy