When you’re too busy and the work demands you speed up, slow down.
When the same way you’ve always done things is no longer working, don’t keep doing it but faster.
Stop.
The pause is laughed at/feared. It’s viewed as unrealistic.
Yet it’s the pause, and only the pause that gets most teams to the next level.
Pausing in the middle of ‘working stupid’ (and if we’re stressed we’re working stupid) gives us the only opportunity to ‘work smart’.
Our brains literally function better with a pause. We access the cortex – our smarts – instead of being driven by the amygdala to just speed up today’s treadmill.
It’s energy that gets the work done, not time. Time is created equal, but not energy. Energy comes and goes and “we hate one another” does not help energy. Nor does “barking orders”.
If you’re too busy to have an agenda for a meeting that you get to people before the meeting, I’m here to tell you you’re too busy to have that meeting. Cancel it and do something productive like going for a walk.