The past couple of weeks have been overwhelming. The amount of stuff that I end up doing on a daily basis was just enormous! And it seemed there was just no end to it! Every night I would plan for the next day and write the big 6 goals that I plan to smash out of the park in addition to the usual stuff… you know, the random, personal, optional and often ambitious (compared to the limited time that you have) stuff.
And I’ll be the first in line to say that these tasks aren’t an issue until they just stay there in that list. Every-freaking-day! It wasn’t up until this morning I figured what was really happening. I kind of overestimated myself to be a lean mean superhuman, which I definitely am not.
The challenge? My reading list — had an average of 8 things (books, webinars, podcasts, articles and white papers) on a daily basis. It had 14 for today and another dozen for tomorrow! I know it’s insane to even think about it but my obsession to learn and know more got the better of me (about Staffing and Recruiting, for professional reasons).
The solution? Thanks to my coach, I worked through what was really going on — I was being unreasonable. He made me think through my strength training regime and reflect on its effectiveness. Guess what? Less is more. And I’ve been practicing it for the past several years to get stronger. The idea is to put in the work on a consistent basis. It’s like working on building a strong foundation and eventually it builds up.
Carrying over the same framework to my obsession to learn is pretty simple. Sticking with a few (perhaps 3) resources every day is ideally better than 8 or a dozen! I get to focus and spend more time clearing up the backlog (of audiobooks and/or podcasts) or tear through a book or two quickly with a more focused effort. Simple, isn’t it? But apparently, it didn’t occur to me.
Like Albert Einstein said, “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Thank god for coaches! 😉