The laptop screen flickers on, as it does early every morning. While it warms up, a quick scan of the mobile phone shows three incoming texts. Two are quickly dispensed with, one needs further work. Email opens on the laptop, reshaping the day ahead. A few things from earlier in the week blew up or fell through and need attention. A glance at the calendar shows three hours of back-to-back online meetings starting in 30 minutes. Good thing the kids are in school today.
If more than a few parts of this sound familiar, read on, for you’re about to be reminded that there is a better way and you owe it to yourself and everyone around you to live into it. Even if we’re fortunate enough to be spared the life-and-death struggles of Covid-19, the relentless pinging, non-stop screen-time and insidious sameness of days like the above are bad for your well-being and bad for your leadership. They dull our senses and drain our energy.
We can look to the nervous system for clues as to why relentless stimulation and sameness dull and drain us. Just as a nerve cell, repeatedly stimulated, habituates to the signal and responds less over time, so do we lose our sensitivity to repeated stimulation. Just as our nervous system pays little attention to what’s expected, saving its juice for what’s unexpected, so do we start paying less attention to days that feel very much like the day before.
So, how can we reverse these effects and return vitality to our day and leadership? Follow these three principles and you’ll be on the right track:Break up the day with a rhythm that shifts distinctly from focus to relaxation, from challenge to renewal. In their book on managing energy,, Loehr and Schwartz emphasize the importance of mini breaks every 90 minutes and a longer break for exercise at least once per day. Stretch and recharge.
Likewise put rhythm into your week so every day doesn’t feel the same. Beyond the distinction between weekend and weekdays, create distinct shifts, for example, between people and tasks, indoors and outdoors, work and play, attending to details and thinking big picture. If you throw all those together without contrast, they become like a grayed-out, indistinct picture, which is pretty much how the nervous system registers them.
I like how to read the comments, I have to folder down like 2 or 3 times thru (fact checks, warning of misinformation, more censorship) when are things gonna stop being so stupid?
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