You know that feeling where someone has asked if you ‘just have 5 mins’, they just need something quickly. You were right in the middle of a piece of work you’ve been trying to get to all week. Your stomach drops, you want to say no, but you automatically say yes, you can’t help it, the word is out of your mouth before you can stop yourself and you know it’s going to take an age to get back into what you were doing.
The 5-minute thing takes an hour, another thing to solve, and eventually get back to what you were doing, uncertain where you’d got to or what you were thinking, it takes on average 23 minutes to regain focus.
The automatic yes has cost you an hour.
But the automatic yes is just one aspect of working on autopilot. When your job is full on, you’re in almost back to back meetings, between them you’re jumping from task to task, trying to get through the mental list of competing tasks, and on top of this you need to manage everything outside of work. There isn’t time to get lunch, let alone pause, and reflect within your day. Every day is like this. It turns into weeks where you never stop, and your day becomes habit.
Sometimes this is helpful. You’re working effectively, your brain knows exactly what you need to be doing and you move through the tasks, get everything ticked off. And you feel on top of the world, you’re efficient, and you’ve got this. It’s been a busy, but satisfying day, because you feel in control.
And then we have the version of autopilot where you’re just about holding it together and surviving. Instead of moving strategically from one task to another, you’re jumping about. Instead of feeling in control, you feel overwhelmed. You’re only dealing with what’s in front of you, you can’t see the big picture, and you don’t know if you’re coming or going. That automatic yes to have you got 5 minutes is about dealing with the immediate problem in front of you (yet another thing adding to your overwhelm), you’re reacting instead of being able to be strategic.
The difficult thing is when you feel this busy and you’re stuck in autopilot, you can’t necessarily see it. It just feels like you need to get through all the tasks, and that means keeping on. It’s counterintuitive, but what you need to do is slow down, so you can better assess where you actually need to focus your attention.
But I get it, when you’re leading a busy organisation, where often everything falls to you because there is limited resource, the idea of slowing down or stopping feels impossible, and often is accompanied by feelings of guilt, stress or anxiety because it can feel like you’re letting people down or not doing something well enough (and this is the other side of the coin that we can develop skills to help us manage – more on this later this week).
It doesn’t feel like a choice, it feels like you have to keep going, but ultimately, it is. We can choose to stay stuck in this cycle, or we can develop the skills that can help take us out of autopilot. This is a state I knew only too well when I was a senior leader in the sector, and the these are skills I use day to day in all aspects of my life.
To take us out of the state of autopilot we want to develop our awareness of the present moment, you might recognise this as mindfulness, and developing a mindfulness or meditation practice can be a helpful tool, and there are many apps like Headspace or Calm which can help you with this. But for many of us fitting in time for a daily mindfulness practice, even when it’s just 5 minutes can be difficult, and it’s not always the tool you want when you are facing many competing tasks – you don’t have 5 minutes to meditate when a member of staff is asking for your help.
These are the 2 steps to work on. It’s important to remember that these are skills which take practice, it’s normal to take time to remember to do them, to find them uncomfortable, or not do them consistently to begin with (this is why I offer a coaching programme which specifically focusses on building these skills).
Pause – this can often be difficult, but it’s the action which enables us to move from reacting to responding, and enables us to see we have a choice to make. It’s about creating a little bit of space in your day, and in the moments you find yourself responding automatically. It means that we can start to make more conscious choices, break cycles of behaviour we want to change, and lay the foundation for the change we want. Here’s how to start
Take 5 deep breaths when you find yourself alone
Count to 5 before you respond
Pause before asking questions
Take your lunch away from your desk or go for a walk (I know this feels tricky in the middle of a busy day; you might want to work up to it, or try it one day a week).
Notice – starting to notice our thoughts, feelings and how we respond to them can be a bit uncomfortable, but it is how we use these pauses to notice, that creates our awareness of the present moment. It does a couple of things for us – it can take us out of that busy overwhelm, the swirling never ending to-do list, and ground us in the moment and what matters or needs our attention. And it is this which helps us stop reacting, by noticing we direct our attention to what we want it to be on, and can start to feel in control again. Here’s how to start
Take a couple of deep breaths – this helps ground you; it takes you out of your head and into your body
Ask yourself how your body feels, what your mind is saying or what emotions you are feeling
Ask what you would usually do in response to these thoughts and feelings, and what else you can do
These skills are relatively straightforward, but they can be challenging to practice. Firstly, we’re very good at avoiding thoughts and feelings which are uncomfortable, and so deliberately bringing our attention to these is hard. Secondly, when we’re in a cycle of autopilot finding the time or remembering to pause is hard (this is why it’s best to start with just taking some breaths alone, that way you can start to build the muscle), and thirdly, if it doesn’t come as easily as we’d like it can be disheartening. So, start small, and practice, practice, practice.
And if you’d like to explore this in more detail, join me for my free masterclass on November 4th, 12-1pm and if you can’t join me live, if you register, I’ll send you the recording and resources.