Circumventing Your Logjams
Recreated from siteofcontact.net
The other day, in a phone conversation, I heard myself say: “I am about to get myself into a Log Jam.” Which meant to me, I could come to a standstill in my work because of the number of projects I had open at the time.
Having too much to do can paralyze you. I had to stop, reassess what was happening; and I needed to get things moving again.
I thought about the word ‘logjam,’ and the folks in the lumber industry, as well as movies where the plot of the film was people’s financial livelihood being dependent on navigating the river, to float logs to sawmills to be turned into lumber. What would happen when a log could get caught in a part of the river and block the others from floating downstream? The blocked logs would block others, and eventually the flow would stop. A literal jamming of logs, and the possibility that a person’s livelihood could be lost.
One of the menaces of our own business/social life is that sometimes we have too much idle time on our hands, while at other times we’re too busy. Idleness in our time can sometimes lead to over-commitment. An ideal goal is for us to strike a balance between idleness and over-commitment, which is a challenge. Nobody sets out to overcommit. Sometimes we agree to take on a project, and when we get around to starting that project, we find the date has been either pushed back or moved forward, until now it is coinciding with another commitment. Sometimes we just lose track of the commitment, and agree to something else that conflicts with it. Often, we can simply underestimate how long things will take.
Over-commitment is usually the culprit that causes backup. A type of cognitive logjam. You are suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of the tasks ahead. You find yourself paralyzed, or unable to make progress with any of the tasks that need doing. Tasks are intensified by other commitments, which then have started piling up, and before you know it, you’re in that cognitive logjam.
So, if you find yourself in the jam, here are some steps that may get things flowing again:
Make a list of all projects/commitments, that you can prioritize based on urgency, importance, and their time demands. (I’ll often work with pen and paper for this.)
Re-negotiate some of the less-urgent items on the list. In reviewing these items, often I find the pressure I’m feeling is self-imposed; contacting those involved and, with empathy for their timeline, asking them for more time can work.
Then focus on one thing at a time. Set aside time to make a cognitive space where you allow no distractions or reminders of the other things you have pending.
Get organized: have your task filtered by project, context, timeline, etc. I have friends that use to-do-list management apps on their computers.
Keep reference materials for each project separate, but easily accessible.
Environment can be a game changer in these situations. Change up the visual context you’re working in. Get out of the home/office and go work in a coffee shop or library. This change may not let you execute the whole project, but it will allow you to plan, or at least to get your emails, outlines, etc. done.
Look around you for talent, your support team, people, etc., that you could delegate things to. We are all burdening ourselves with things that could be more easily/better accomplished by somebody else.
In your quest to be proactive, there are some things I would advise against when you find yourself facing a logjam:
Don’t go back on your commitments. (As stated before, re-negotiating is a better option.)
Don’t leave people hanging. (Communicate, communicate, communicate.)
Don’t get caught in the cycle of procrastination. I interpret procrastination as the mind’s natural reaction to being overwhelmed. Procrastination/then Guilt. This cycle only makes things worse. Instead, be pro-active, making progress with fly efforts. Baby steps of minor/easy commitments, just to get a sense of things flowing again.
Avoid taking on more commitments until you feel you can be in more control over your schedule.
Above all, learn from the situation. Make note of what works and what doesn’t. In particular, be mindful of your time cycles — in your days, months, and years — to identify when you find yourself being too busy or idle. How did this situation occur? What concrete steps can you take to avoid, or balance out, being in such a situation in the future? These will give you your takeaways from this situation.
Being conscious of your action, or inaction, allows you to manage your time better. It also allows you to enjoy yourself guilt-free in times when you’re less busy, with the knowledge that it won’t be long before you’ve got more to do than time to do it, but with less concern over being caught in logjams.