How to get on top of things

Move beyond overwhelm to sustainable work habits that help you sleep at night with three essential ingredients

I wondered about posting this in the midst of, you know, the world burning, but I reckon whether you’re holding on to your job because capitalism, or if you’re organising for social and climate justice, you still need to know how to filter all the stuff you could be doing and decide what you’re going to do, right?

It is not straightforward knowing how to deal with the demands of complex jobs and complex lives. Overwhelm and procrastination are natural outcomes of not having systems in place to handle too much input for the tiny pipe that human beings are.

Overwhelm

Task overwhelm is when there are too many things-to-do for us to hold in our head at once. It makes it really hard to decide what to do and what not to do and can lead us to unhealthy habits: freezing, overwork, random efforts, procrastination…

Procrastination

Procrastination is when there’s something we feel like we are meant to be doing, and we are avoiding doing it on that timescale. Some of its roots are simple and some of them are complex.

I have a complicated history with ‘productivity’, ‘time management’ and procrastination.

I found myself teaching productivity but had secret, chronic, debilitating procrastination.

Many years ago, i was the internal training office at an IT training firm. I got the job because I just loved the internal training manager but she left after four months on maternity leave, leaving me as basically the internal training department.

That meant I was responsible for all the soft skills training on any topic: selection interviewing, disciplinary interviewing, assertiveness (bless), business communication, coaching… and, yes, what we used to call ‘time management’.

So, I did what I normally did and went to Borders (sob), hauled 12 books into the cafe, took notes, bought the best two and created a one-day course. It was a pick-and-mix approach, where I took loads of ‘tips’ and people could choose the ones that made sense to them, plus I nagged people about how much time they spent doing ‘urgent but not important’ things, when they should have been spending time on ‘important not urgent’ things (yeah, right). Not a coherent approach.

Several years later, I became Europe’s lead trainer for a system called Mission: Control (yes, we used to call it Mission: Impossible).

It had been a pretty static course with loads of PowerPoint so I and my mentor recreated it so it was much more dynamic and suited to British/European culture (I also de-cultified it as it came from a funny organisation).

This system was comprehensive, getting you to think about everything you had to do, wanted to do, dreamed of doing and had committed to do. It was super strict about scheduling and lists and lead me to have a portable dictaphone with me at all times so I could capture things whatever I was doing - even when driving or if I woke up in the middle of the night and thought of something.

I often spent my morning replaying scary, indecipherable whispers.

My secret during this time was: I was a chronic procrastinator.

I hid the fact I wasn’t getting stuff done - particularly stuff to do with my business, particularly sales and marketing and finance and a whole bunch of things. It lead to some dark times in our life.

I really tried to implement this system, but it was made for people who were different to me, plus: emotional stuff can’t be avoided forever (this book and this book really helped me with the darker side of procrastination.)

Fast forward to several years after that, and I was listening to Merlin Mann’s podcast Back To Work and they talked about David Allen’s book Getting Things Done and I thought it was time to get my shit together. I did a full GTD implementation - quite similar to Mission:Control, but a bit more realistic, plus, after years of meditation and therapy, I think I was a different person by this time.

It was enough to get me going and I used a half-assed-but-works-for-me version of GTD on Evernote for the past six or seven years.

A couple of years ago, I came across Bullet Journal, a way of using a paper notebook to track what needs doing and what you’ve done. I cycle between that and digital notes. I love analogue, really, despite the fact that my phone is glued to my hand at every waking moment.

I’m also immersed in reading on complexity, chaos and emergent strategy, so I’m well aware that pretending we’re robots in a factory isn’t going to fit complicated, ever-changing project-based jobs.

All this to say: I’ve looked a lot at productivity and to-do lists and procrastination and I think I’ve mainly come out the other side with some basic patterns that you can use to create a system that works for your brain and routine and job, and that can flex as things change.

(Non-neurotypical people - people with ADD/ADHD or other conditions or disabilities that affect short-term memory and your style of focusing - sorry, I’m definitely coming from a neurotypical position here. My hope is that the principles I introduce might have enough flex in them for you to adapt them to the way that you work. Let me know if there are things that would help for me to include and I’ll edit them in.)

There are three main practices that seem to be common to most systems that help you get on top of stuff.

1. Capture

2. Capacity

3. Review and reflection

1. Capture

One of the major mistakes we make when we’re swimming through the world is trying to hold everything or nearly everything in our head. (Remember, I speak as a recovering chronic procrastinator - please know I’m writing this with a major dose of self-recognition.)

Either you never make a list, or you make one for that day just to get the few things that are totally on top of your mind in front of you or you have several lists in several places.

Result: the feeling that important things might be falling through the cracks.

Also: open loops burning cycles in your brain at all times.

This is exhausting.

You want to close loops but you can’t close the loops by getting everything done. You never get to the end of your list. Not whilst you’re in work.

I think there is, however, a collective sense memory of when you finished school or university or a job and for a brief few days/weeks, you had nothing on your mental list. I have a theory we’re unconsciously chasing that feeling again. But it never comes - we think that having a bunch of unfinished stuff is bad and if we only just GOT IT TOGETHER we’d hit that halcyon task inbox zero again. But our heads always feel so FULL.

The first thing we need to do is get all that stuff out, and into, here’s the kicker, ONE place.

Yep, I’m going to be momentarily hardline and say: you need one place to capture EVERYTHING that goes through your head to do.

Life admin, work stuff, big stuff, small stuff, things you mean to do, things you dream of doing, things people request via email or slack or whatever, things to buy, send, get rid of, fix, sell, say, write, read… All of it.

This means you need what we used to call in my Mission:Control days: a capture tool. It needs to be accessible at all times and very simple to use.

That probably means: a notebook, an audio thing or an app on your phone. If you can make it work with index cards or butterfly postits where you KNOW it’s all gonna be in one place, you’re not going to lose anything and you can capture things at pretty much any moment? Go for it.

Whenever something occurs to you, you capture it.

The idea is never to hold ‘Must do x, must do x’ in your head. You know when you go ‘OH! CRAP!’ as a loop from the back of your mind leaps above the waves momentarily? You capture it RIGHT AWAY.

After a few days, the relief is massive, knowing that nothing is slipping through the cracks. (This isn’t the whole piece of getting out of overwhelm, but it’s a good first step.)

I recommend you start out with just one massive long-ass list, no topics, no sections. We can refine it later, but I think it’s important for you to only add structure in as you find you need it, not go for preemptive structure and get lost in the implementation, losing the reason you’re doing this: to be taking wise and timely action!

Lots of the productivity systems recommend that you do a massive sweep through your life which takes hours/days: go through all your emails, Slack messages, Trello tasks, pieces of paper, and transfer all the tasks onto your list. To a certain extent I’d recommend this, but don’t put it off waiting for that day when you can do it thoroughly. Up to you as you understand your psychology, but something is better than nothing.

Go for imperfect.

So that’s the first part: a massive list of things you could do.

The next thing to think about is: capacity.

2. Capacity

Stupid time/space continuum. Stupid body. We are not infinite unicorn spirits with built-in time machines. We are tiny monkeys who need to sleep. So there are human limits to what we can do. Even if you didn’t sleep, there would still only be 24 hours in a day.

I am willing to bet almost anything that the amount on your list is wa-hayyy more than the time you have available. And that’s not including what’s going to go on it tomorrow and the next day.

So the next step is to look at your capacity.

To start with capacity means: how much time do you have available to do stuff on your list?

It may be that you have a diary or a calendar and you can look at what meetings, etc are already scheduled. It may be that you’ve been holding that in your head. Or maybe you don’t have anything scheduled as you don’t really have a meeting-filled life.

Sketch out: When you start work. When you finish work. What’s already in your diary for the next few weeks.

Add up the hours. That’s how many hours you have IN THEORY. (Look at your list. Cry.)

Yes, in theory. Because there are at least four aspects I can think of off the top of my head that we need to add in.

1. Biorhythms

You are not a robot. There are times when you have more cognitive surplus and times when you have less. For me I have more mental capacity in the morning. My Golden Hour is 10.00-11.30ish. Sometimes I have a second wind at 3.30/4.30/5.30 but not always. A coaching client of mine is the opposite. She (mentally) wakes up at 4.30pm - has all her best ideas, is the most creative - so she schedules meetings in the morning and does her best to keep that time free (or talks to me *waggles eyebrows*).

Evidently, your capacity is not a simple maths problem. Some activities require more juice, some less. Each hour is not the same.

If you’re not sure, do a time/mood diary for a couple of weeks and you’ll soon find out (I used for a bit Daylio).

2. Transition time

You can’t move from one task to another without a break - not for long, anyway. There is always some attention residue that means some of your mind stays with the previous task.

Plus, if it’s a significant shift in gear, you are not a car. Your mental clutch takes more than a second to deploy (ok, whatever, I’m not mechanical, shut up you know what I mean).

For example, if you’re an introvert and you’ve just spent a bunch of time with people, you need decompress time.

If you’re moving from one project to another, you need time to reorient yourself.

3. Surprises

If you ever do a time log (yes, I would recommend it) you’ll find that a lot of your time is spent in things you just couldn’t have predicted at the beginning of the day.

Some people call them asteroids or interruptions, I call them surprises.

For example, I had someone on Mission: Control who worked on reception. She found from her time log that literally 75% of her day was unplannable so really she could only rely on maybe 90 minutes of schedule-able time a day (but her boss expected her to do, maybe, six hours…)

Your capacity is definitely affected by the amount of surprises you can realistically expect. (Yes, you can try and reduce the amount of interruptions/asteroids/distractions in your day, but best to deal with reality right now and then aspire to change things.)

4. Willpower

We use willpower whenever we don’t do what we really want to do in a given moment.

Thing is, all the research suggests we only have a limited amount of willpower and when it’s gone for the day, it’s gone. This is why I’m easily able to have a healthy breakfast, but all I want for dinner is chips and ice cream.

The only way to renew it is either sleep or (less effectively) food.

If you get on with something you’re not loving, or have to really pay attention in a meeting, or have to do something that makes you nervous but you do it anyway, or you do something that you really have to concentrate to do, or you resist checking the notifications you’re getting, or you’re trying to ignore distractions… all of those are examples of you spending your willpower.

Let me repeat: there is a limited daily amount of willpower!

If you’re in recovery, or eating differently, or have caring responsibilities, or are dealing with a less-than-conducive working or living environment, you’re already spending some of your budget just living. This also counts if you’re a Person of Colour, trans, disabled, or have another marginalised identity and you’re navigating this world not built for you.

So it can be a helpful idea to think about a willpower budget in your day. Look at your day as it is spread ahead of you and think:

What is going to require me to be focused or what am I going to have to really get myself in a particular mindset to do?

Are you being realistic about what inner resources are available to you?

If you’re not getting good enough sleep, or you’re working on a different lifestyle challenge or you’re really having to wade through hard stuff in the rest of your life, well, you’re already spending some of your willpower outside of work, so you may need to be compassionate to yourself about how much you can get done in the rest of the day.

This is why you used to be able to do a thing with a level of ability, but you just don’t seem to be able to do it like that right now. YOU ARE NOT A ROBOT.

This concept is also linked to the idea of Deep Work - the ability and habit of spending chunks of 90 minutes or longer totally absorbed in one task without distractions. With our fractured, notification-addict way of approaching things, we are training ourselves out of the ability to do this and it’s where a lot of our ‘real’ value-add work comes from, often.

3. Review and Reflection

So, you’ve got your list and you’ve got capacity.

Now what?

Review

There is no magic formula for this - you have to review what you want to get done, what has to get done and what capacity you have to do that work - and then consider if you need to lower your expectations based on your capacity.

A major guiding principle here is that you are probably overcommitted so much that even if you didn’t sleep and you were an unwavering automaton you’d still not get it all done.

So a big part of being a person who gets things done is deciding what you’re not going to do: today, tomorrow, this week, next week, not for a long time, ever.

You might find this article on having a F**ks I Give List helpful to decide on big-chunk priorities.

It can be a really good discipline to keep a time log - making note of what you’re actually spending your time on and when - so you can review what your intentions were and what actually happened. Not in a punitive way, but as a clear-eyed picture of what happens in your day.

You can just have a page in a notebook with the half-hour segments and set a reminder on your phone or whatever to fill it in. You could also use an app like Daylio for this.

A question I ask myself is: What is the open loop that most needs closing right now?

Other possible questions are:

• What task has the biggest ramifications if I don’t complete it today?

• What will I be most relieved to get done today?

• What am I neglecting that could do with some attention?

• What will Future Me be glad I did today?

• What is the wisest action right now?

• What would be the next step on this project?

• What's the cold porridge on my list, that’s only going to get more congealed if I leave it? (Nicked that from a coaching client)

In combination, of course, with:

• What do I realistically have capacity for, bearing in mind my energy levels, environment and motivation?

List buckets

It may be that you need to start sorting your list into a couple of different buckets.

Maybe you need categories like:

• Needs doing in the next week or so (this one has to be done in combination with the question of capacity and with your diary in front of you)

• Doesn’t need doing in the next couple of weeks

• Probably not going to happen for at least a year/is a dream I don’t want to forget

It’s cool to copy things onto a ‘list for today’ as long as everything is still captured in your master list. Pay attention to tension in your body though - are you being honest about your capacity today or is there an internal dialogue that says ‘Well, that has to get done today, so I’ll have to find time, I’ll just be super-focused,’ when the truth is that you’re only going to get half of it done and you need to have some awkward conversations with people?

Difficult conversations are actually an important part of getting clear with your work habits.

The part of us that says ‘yes’ to things is often not in contact with the part that knows capacity. Also if you’re being assigned tasks, no one else has as clear a picture of your capacity as you do.

A coaching client of mine talked about her inner labrador who just said yes if the project sounded interesting or exciting.

When she came to me she was in theory working 8 days a week for different clients! Just having a view of her capacity (a really simple monthly planner, in her case) helped her to have more nuanced conversations, and she learned to set expectations better.

The decision to commit to doing something has to be based on more than just a feeling - you are a human with human limits (dammit) and also with a swirling set of priorities, only some of which will be visible to other people who want you to do stuff for them.

And probably you’re way overcommitted now, so looking honestly at what’s on your plate vs your capacity probably means that you’ll need to get clear with other people.

Estimate time

The other part of review is looking at complex things on your list, maybe breaking them down into smaller tasks, and estimating how long they’re going to take. Humans are notoriously rubbish at estimating how long something will take. Mostly we err on underestimating (apart from things we dread, which we sometimes overestimate - ever had that thing where you finally get around to doing something you’ve been putting off and go ‘Well, that was a lot simpler than I expected!’? That.)

I know it doesn’t feel like you have space to leave space in your diary, but the truth is that things will take longer than you expect so often you have to rejig your day (and therefore tomorrow and the day after) based on surprises or based on the fact that something took much longer than anticipated. A plan is just a place to start.

So reviewing your situation daily and weekly is super-important. And don’t say you don’t have time - seriously, the gains are huge from getting more conscious, even if it feels uncomfortable at times.

Reflection

I think of reflection as a bit more in-depth than review - more like something you do a bit more globally to go, ‘How’s it all working?’

Questions:

• In what ways is this system working and in what ways does it not suit my working day/brain/personality/current demands?

• Is my way of capturing working, or is it getting fragmented (including: Am I holding things in my head that aren’t captured on my central list)?

• Is my way of estimating capacity working? Am I underestimating or overestimating my daily capacity?

• Is my way of reviewing working?

• What could I do to give myself more capacity? Can I change when I do things, where I do them, how I do them?

• What has worked in the past for me that maybe I could start doing again?

• Are there conversations I need to have with people?

• How much ease do I feel in my body, looking at my list and my schedule?

• Am I sleeping, eating, drinking enough water, exercising, having enough time with others/on my own?

So there you go.

If we’re going to get stuff done in the world, we need to know how to get stuff done, but in a way that really works in a sustainable way.

Take time to think about these three aspects and make a system that works for you and get out into the world, doing what needs to be done.

A 90-second script to help people state their pronouns in a group

If you want to make a space feel safer for trans and non-binary people, getting people to declare their pronouns along with their name is a good start. This is exactly what I say when I’m kicking off a new group to make this happen.

You’re doing this because

• it’s great role modelling for other people to copy you in other groups

• if you’re cis (not trans), it’s such a relief for the trans/non-binary people in the room to not have to lead this conversation

• there have been several times I’ve realised I would have guessed someone’s gender wrongly and I’ve been very grateful I’ve put this in place

• even if there are no surprises, you’re signalling that this is a space where trans and non-binary people are to be respected.

I’m not going to do a bunch of context-setting, as I want you to see how the words stand on their own. Feel free to adapt to your context.

It goes:

1. Pronouns

2. Why

3. They/them

4. Demonstration

Script for introducing pronouns to a group

“Let’s start by going round and introducing ourselves.

[What are pronouns?]

So, say your name, and also your pronouns — when people refer to you, do they say:

she/her?

he/him?

they/them?

or something else?

[Why is this important?]

We need to create spaces that are inclusive of trans and non-binary people. It’s important that we state our pronouns as we are essentially guessing people’s gender (and therefore their pronouns) all the time by the way they look, how they dress, what their voice sounds like, and so on.

Most of the time we get it right, but sometimes we guess wrong and then it becomes awkward for the person to correct us.

Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry about to use they/them pronouns.

[They/them pronouns]

So there’s she/her, he/him and also they/them because some people don’t identify as either male or female (they don’t identify with either side of the gender binary, so they are non-binary) so they may use they/them prounouns.

We actually use they/them to refer to individuals a lot, we just don’t tend to notice..

If you’ve ever watched The Great British Bake Off, in the Technical round the bakers’ bakes are judged anonymously. The judges say things like, ‘This baker needed to leave their cake in the oven another ten minutes. They needed to make their ganache smoother. They’ve been a bit heavy-handed with the icing here’ or whatever.

Similarly, if we found a phone or a random set of keys, we would say ‘Oh gosh, I hope they come back and get them. They must be so worried.’ We wouldn’t say ‘I hope he or she comes back and gets them.’

We use ‘they’ to refer to a singular person all the time.

[Demonstration.]

So go around and say your name, and your pronouns. Are you she/her, he/him, they/them (or something else)?

I’ll go first.

My name’s Meg. My pronouns are she/her.”

Simple, right?

Notes:

• I do all of this in a very matter-of-fact, and actually at quite a brisk pace (hence some of the rather long sentences!). I’ve tried to show where I put emphasis, too.

• Obviously, if Bake Off isn’t a reference that works in your culture, either put in a different show or just skip it altogether and go with the phone/keys thing.

• Sometimes, people run out of steam part of the way through, so if someone doesn’t say their pronouns, just smile and say ‘And what are your pronouns?’

A little-known awareness practice for evolving leaders

Try this mindfulness practice to grow your capacity to face complexity and mess.

I’ve been practicing a particular type of awareness practice for the past few weeks and thought I’d share my notes from the field.

It comes from the work of Bill Torbert, who writes and teaches about Action Inquiry and the Seven Transformations of Leadership. His model has been really useful to me as a leadership coach not as a typology of personality types but as a guide to the tectonic shifts that (can) happen in adult life as we (potentially) evolve our capability to take wise and timely action in the face of complexity, uncertainty and mess.

Action Inquiry is about growing the ability to see that every action is an inquiry, an experiment, and how we can, rather than separate them, develop the consciousness to be take action and reflect at the same time.

One suggestion that Bill makes for cultivating this awareness is to practice paying attention to the ‘four territories of experience’.

Here’s how I frame the practice:

Outside

Body

Inside

Up

Outside — What can I see and hear? What’s happening around me right now? What are others doing and saying?

Body — What’s happening with my body? How am I breathing? What’s going on in terms of comfort and discomfort?

Inside — What am I thinking and feeling?

Up — What are my intentions right now?

Here’s how I remember

I got the MindBell app and set it to go off every 20 minutes or so from 8am to 8pm. It has a lovely gentle, but audible sound that was just right for me.

You have to set it so it doesn’t get shut off by your battery optimisation settings — a couple of times I noticed it hadn’t gone off all day and my efficient Android had put it to sleep.

You can also get it to pause for a set time if you’re going into a meeting or (more likely for me) having a nap. I don’t bother turning it off much anymore. If it goes off in a workshop or something, I just go, ‘Oh, that’s my mindfulness bell’ and that seems to make sense to people who know me?

Here’s what each territory does for me

I’ve tried for YEARS to remember throughout the day to be conscious (I actually don’t love the word ‘mindful’ as it’s totally been stolen from its Buddhist roots and I’m not a Buddhist either so, there’s THAT). I’ve been meditating every day for 15 years, and we’re meant to bring our attention back to a certain part of energy throughout the day. I still regularly go through entire days (weeks) where I forget, despite having the best of intentions when I come out of meditation in the morning.

This practice seems to have done something different — maybe because it’s so… complex? thorough?

Each part is important.

Outside

What can I see and hear?

I’m sitting in my house looking at the garden, eating dinner with the people I love.

I’m in Manchester at a trans festival.

I’m sitting on the bus, typing about stuff I care about on my Mac.

I’m washing up watching Grey’s Anatomy.

I’m reading a fab sci-fi book in my super-comfy bed.

This question surprises me a lot by making me wake up in my life and be grateful.

It either reminds me that everything is, generally, fine in that moment or that, actually, it’s more than fine.

I’ve realised in the past few weeks that I’m living aspects of my life that I longed for years ago. That things are genuinely not bad.

Note: Not just looking around me, but hearing the sounds is also particularly powerful at bringing me into the moment.

Body

What’s going on in my body? What am I doing and saying?

This often helps me realise: I’m hungry, I’m sitting with bad posture, I’m dehydrated, I need the loo… basically I’ve been ignoring something my body has been telling me for several, sometimes tens of, minutes.

Sometimes I notice the physical symptoms of an emotion. I’m swirly in my belly or my heart’s beating fast. Noticing this as a physical symptom gives some space to the feeling, sometimes.

Note: Just realising as I’m typing this that the doing/saying part has often been prompted by the ‘outside’ question.

Inside

What am I thinking and feeling?

This is a super important question, as I often come to notice that I’m actually feeling anxious (that’s my habitual emotional groove) — many times about something that happened minutes (sometimes tens of minutes) ago and I’ve stopped noticing.

It’s also a joy when I notice that I’m feeling steady and content.

Note: It tells you something about me that I don’t think I notice what I’m thinking very much, just what I’m feeling. Your mileage may vary, obvs.

Up

What is my intention right now?

This has been, I think, one of the most powerful questions at resetting me.

For example, the bell went off yesterday when I was sitting with my people eating lunch and watching a problematic old Will and Grace episode. When it got to ‘What’s my intention?’ I realised that my intention was to have a break.

I had been, however, thinking about work and slightly tensing to be ready for The Next Thing. When I reconnected with having a break, I softened into the moment.

This question works even when I haven’t set an intention. In the moment I get to decide on an intention.

I’m doing my exercises for planning my next six months of my business. What’s my intention? To feel clear and coherent about what I’m going to be doing.

I’m emailing meetups about potentially speaking. What’s my intention? Oh, yeah, getting more speaking gigs which I love.

I’m on Twitter. What’s my intention? Oh, yeah, to be holding a coherent energy online.

Pretty much every time this question connects me to something bigger, more expansive, more coherent, more conscious.

Super super helpful.

Warning: Awareness practices are NOT easy

Two pieces of advice.

1. Actually ask yourself the questions

I find I get the most mileage when I ask myself the questions with my inner voice. Like, with words.

As a long-term meditator, I’ve learned to distrust practices that are very ‘mind-y’, that operate from Ordinary Mental Consciousness.

But this one seems to benefit from being explicit and overt, not just from a wordless place. There are times when I do it just ‘sensing’ the four territories at once, which I suppose is maybe the goal? But it seems like a step too far, right now.

2. Keep coming back

I’ve spent years trying to be aware of my awareness during the day, but the mind wants to distract you, and life, especially modern life, is built to conspire with it.

I did ok with this experiment for a couple of days, what with New Project Enthusiasm and all, but even then it was maybe five or six times a day (remember the bell was going off every 20 minutes for a 12 hour stretch!).

Some days I hear the bell and go, ‘Oh, that’s the awareness bell’ but don’t do the practice.

Sometimes, most times if I’m honest, I hear the bell and don’t do anything at all.

So don’t beat yourself up if this doesn’t come ‘naturally’ or it doesn’t ‘work’. You have to keep coming back to it again and again.

As Natalie Goldberg, the famous Zen writing instructor says,

‘You don’t drink just one glass of water. You drink glass of water after glass of water.’

Give it a go. And keep giving it a go.

And let me know how you get on?

Why you need a ‘F**ks I Give’ list (NSFW)

Life is huge. You are finite. Boundaries are needed.

(This post is a bit sweary - definitely Not Safe For Work.)

One of my people started reading a book about giving less of a fuck about stuff and the concept certainly appealed to me. I have pretty porous boundaries sometimes (especially when people I care about are feeling less than positive) and I get climate and Planet Pain Paralysis very easily.

I also run my own business, am great at starting new things, and care a lot about a lot of things.

I couldn’t get on with the book that he’d chosen — just felt harsh to me. A couple of days later I had an afternoon in Manchester and was working from the cafe in Waterstones. I picked up a similar book, written by a very different author, and (sorry author royalties) skimmed the whole thing in an hour.

It was nicely written and had very clear instructions, but seemed to be about stopping caring about stuff that I didn’t care about in the first place. Baby showers and co-workers charity appeals. My boundary issues are a bit deeper than that!

It did prompt me, however, to make a list of what I do, actually, give a fuck about.

Somehow it makes it easier for me to know what I do care about, and exclude everything else, than the other way around. Maybe the same will be true for you?

So I got a piece of paper and wrote ‘Fucks I Give’ in the middle and started a mind map.

First off came: Work and Money, Relationships, Friends, Being Myself, Social Justice and Climate Crisis as my big categories.

I quickly went into more detail on each.

For example, Work and Money included Clients, Ex-Clients and Resonance Momentum (Who likes ‘marketing’? Yuck. My coaching clients find me because they resonate with me and my work.)

Resonance Momentum goes down to: videos, Medium posts (hi!), website, contacting people, cups of tea, monthly public/private leadership group (in the planning stages).

Under Friends I noted down my super closest people, then literally went through my phone/Facebook and made sure I didn’t miss anyone else I truly give a fuck about in a big ol’ list.

Chunking down from the freeze-overwhelming categories like Climate Crisis was key. What do I actually give a fuck about?

I realised I cared about: supporting the Doughnut Economics project, writing, working with leaders in climate organisations, and convening groups. Some of that is aspirational, some of it current.

Social justice was: reading, writing, amplifying and convening.

I soon hived off Being Myself onto a new page as that corner was getting a little crowded!

Being Myself lead to

• Transition

• Fitness

• Sex

• Wellbeing

• Therapy

• Magical/Spiritual stuff.

Transition was: voice stuff, clothes, medical, talking to trans friends and being in the thick of trans community.

Wellbeing included:

• cooking

• bookshops

• being near or on water

• reading

• writing craft

• languages

• naps

• talking to friends

• sex

• queer community

• making/listening to music

• hanging out with my people.

See how it works?

It’s so comforting to look at a spread of two pages and see, ‘Yep, that’s everything’.

The Fucks I Give list serves as a reminder of things I might be neglecting, and reinforces that if I’m spending time on any of this, I’m spending my fucks (and therefore this one wild and precious life) wisely.

It also hones your ability to judge ‘Am I just putting that in out of duty?’ If the energy of some things doesn’t feel coherent with the rest of the items, they don’t go up.

I figure this is a work in progress and I’ll come back to it as I and my life changes.

Feels solid. Coherent. Has boundaries.

What are you waiting for?

What do you give a fuck about? Make a list!

Realising I was trans has saved my life

Name: Meg Amber Lightheart

Pronouns: She/her

I’ve had a sense of melancholy since I was a kid. Whilst never genuinely thinking of doing anything drastic, if you’d offered me a choice, I’d have preferred to not be alive.

Always thought it was just existential ennui.

On the 4th March, it literally went, and hasn’t come back.

I searched Impact Hub Brum’s What’sApp group and turns out I put a message in on 23rd March 2016 about experimenting with my gender expression (‘think Eddie Izzard, not Caitlyn Jenner’ - bless).

Then last year I went to Trans Vegas in Manchester, organised by Trans Creative, Kate O’Donnell, a festival by trans people for trans people. As well as hearing the incredible CN Lester sing, I met Kate, Juno Roche, Kate Hutchinson, Charlie Craggs and Kuchenga.

Here were a bunch of trans women who seemed to be living their lives and were comfy in their skin. 

I weaselled my way into the speaker dinner on the first night and was able to be part of a conversation with other trans people like I’d never had before. Me in my dress and my beard, living my best non-binary life.

The next day, saw Kuchenga interview Charlie about her book To My Trans Sisters. I stood at the back of the room sobbing, feeling a shift in my bodysoul, a deep sense of recognition.

I walked up to Kuchenga in tears afterwards and said, ‘I think I might be a girl.’ 

‘Ok. I’m with you,’ she said. And ever since she has been. She also called me ‘sis’ and it was like a deep pool of longing just opened up in me.

Flash forward six or seven months of conversations with my people and I realised I needed to work out exactly what I wanted, separate from other people. I then spent a couple of months talking to a lovely therapist who specialises in talking to trans people.

Two things happened.

I had messed up my timings and was in Brum town centre for my phone therapy appointment, so ended up wandering around Pigeon Park, the busy grounds of the cathedral. We’d been exploring authenticity and Marianne The Therapist asked me ‘If you’d woken up this morning the most authentically you, would you be wearing these clothes and would you be using these pronouns?’

Everything in me said ‘No.’

The second thing was I was reading The Art of Being Normal, by Lisa Williamson. I was reading the end on the 4th March, having breakfast with Zed and Dan. The end is pretty happy for the trans girl main character and that happy ending just BROKE me. I sobbed and sobbed.

It lead to a big conversation where I realised my last worries about transitioning were about Zed and Dan’s reactions. They assured me that they loved me and fully supported me and wouldn’t be embarrassed or disgusted or anything else my mind was scaring me with.

Somewhere between first and second breakfast, I made the decision that I wanted to pursue a binary transition.

And the melancholy just WENT. It’s gone. My whole life just lines up, so much of my childhood (and adulthood to be honest) makes sense, and I want to be alive. I am alive.

In the past few weeks I’ve been telling my close people, all of whom have been so wonderful, including my Mum (who sent me a card),  my Dad (who said he felt relieved and only wanted me to be happy) and my Auntie June, my Nan’s sister (who said she must be a witch because she’s been waiting for someone to tell her since I changed my name to its most recent incarnation).

Meg Amber

I was off work on Wednesday which led me to going through name list websites to see which names pinged. I’d been pretty sure it would be Amber, but wanted to check to see if there was a name I hadn’t thought of. Arwen was a popular contender on my Facebook wall, but I’m not really a graceful elf.

It was Zed who said ‘Have you thought about books you love?’ which was his sneaky way of getting me to think of A Wrinkle In Time (he quickly left the room and got busy doing something APPARENTLY.)

A Wrinkle In Time was my favourite book in my childhood and formed a lot of my morality. I always identified with Meg, the awkward girl who didn’t believe in herself but found courage to fight the shadow and the dark.

It feels so good to be called Meg, so good I can’t believe it’s actually allowed. I’ve kept Amber as a middle name as (a) I do love it and (b) it gives me the social media handle of MEGALIGHTHEART.

Today on #TransDayOfVisibility, I’ve changed my name by deed poll so it’s reeeaaal.

I’m having laser hair removal on my face once a month to stop the hair growing and I’m exploring hormones. Everything else is up for exploration and, well, pretty private really. Happy for you to ask any questions you have by private message/email - if I think they are relevant to everyone, I’ll post things about them.

Tl;dr: I’m a girl and happier than I’ve been since I was a kid. 

#TDOV #TDOV2019

20 questions to explore your relationship with hope

After reading about Brexit and the insects and all that, I was feeling pretty lacking in hope.

So on Wednesday night at the Circle of Curious Complexity face-to-face meetup, we started a month of exploring hope and what it is. (The Circle is free and open to everyone with their feet on the ground and their eye on the horizon. The physical meetups are in Birmingham, UK, but you can participate online by writing or creating on the monthly theme - tag me in! - or just using the theme to reflect.)

After each person checked in with their mood and reason for coming (obvs!), I placed a card with ‘HOPE’ written on it and we stood in the room where our body wanted to place ourselves in connection with it. (Thanks to my pal Rachel Donath for introducing me to the the world of embodied learning - finding out what our bodies know that our minds don’t. We added this after an experiment last month with time.)

Two people stood quite close to the card - one on the left, indicating their politics - and said that hope was present for them, and that it was what gets them out of bed. Another person sat far away and a bit sideways on: ‘I know hope is over there and I see it, but I’m not very close to it’.

I stood as far as I could get and kind of squinted at hope in suspicion. At least I didn’t turn my back or walk out of the room, I suppose…

We then gathered and, in true #CircleofCC style, wrote questions that might help us to explore our relationship with hope.

20 Questions to explore your relationship with hope

1. Is hope the same as desire?

2. Is hope always in the future?

3. What links hope and faith/trust?

4. What’s the difference between hope and belief? If I’m in a hole and someone jumps in to help me, do I hope they can help or do I want to believe they can help?

5. How do we hope in the face of enormity and overwhelm?

6. Does hope need to be based on something concrete?

7. If hope were to go missing, how you salvage your relationship?

8. Do you carry hope, and how much does it weigh?

9. Are there different levels of hope?

10. Is it more meaningful/useful to think about purpose?

11. How do we take action when we are hopeless?

12. What is the opposite of hope?

13. Is hope created from intentions?

14. What or who personifies hope for you? If how were a mythical character/theme what would it be?

15. Is hope just a feeling?

16. What are you expecting hope to do for you?

17. Why do we need hope?

18. Where has hope been in your life?

19. Does someone else’s relationship with hope change yours?

20. If I wish really really hard, where does it become hope?

We did not talk about all these questions but even laying some of them out on the table helped us to map what hope is for us.

Hope is a flimsy basis for action

The main dingdingding for me was realising that, in a way, hope is just a feeling, which makes it kind of a flimsy basis for continuing action. If I can’t take action when I feel devoid of hope, then the change I want to see in the world definitely won’t happen.

It’s maybe more beneficial to think about purpose or meaning. Yes, it’s important to focus partially on ‘What change do I want to see in the world?’ but also ‘What kind of person do I want to be in times of crisis? What am I actually here for?’

Weirdly, ignoring whether something seems likely or not (one basis for the feeling of ‘hope’) means I’m more able to take action which, paradoxically, may make the outcome more probable. See what I mean?

We also discussed how infectious hope or hopelessness is - and how maybe we should talk more about where we are hopeful.

At the end of the meetup, I stood nearer to hope, but kind of side-on to it. I see hope as a bit of a red herring, now. Something that’s far too ephemeral and out of our control to focus on. Purpose/meaning/being seems more robust.

Of course, this has left me feeling more hopeful than I have for months.

27 writing prompts to explore your relationship with time

At the Circle of Curious Complexity in January we explored our relationship with time.

We all came up with some questions that would help the conversation and only got through five of them.

So here they all are in case you want to use them as a start point for thinking or creating something.

27 writing prompts to explore your relationship with time

1. Are we running out of time?

2. If you cannot remember an event, did it exist?

3. How do you slow time down?

4. Imagine time as a packet of Skittles. What could each colour represent? Is there a dominant colour in the packet?

5. Do our children inherit memories?

6. What was your favourite age? What if you could go back?

7. How is time distributed in the home?

8. How do you decide what to do?

9. What are the times and places where time feels like your enemy… or your friend?

10. If we enjoy a ‘timewaster’ is the time wasted?

11. “I don’t have time.” An unwillingness to make time, or a sensible gatekeeping of a limited resource?

12. Have you ever experienced the Mandela effect?

13. If death is certain and the time of death is certain, what is the right thing?

14. How do you know it’s the right time?

15. Is time consumable? How can we measure this?

16. How much does the past matter?

17. How do the seasons influence how you feel about time?

18. Time is a gift. Who deserves your gifts?

19. Where does time come from?

20. Can you put a value on an hour?

21. Would you ever go a day without looking at a clock to know what time it is?

22. Do you worry about how much time you have left?

23. What is your most loved possession?

24. Have you ever experienced deja vu?

25. How do you feel about legacy and things lasting after you?

26. How do you feel about time?

27. Imagine time as a town. The present is home. How often do you visit other places in the town? What’s the furthest you’ve travelled?

If you write/create anything with these, tag me in and/or use #circleofcc and I’ll let other Circlers know. :)

What happened in our first Circle of Curious Complexity

I’m holding a regular space for a thing I’m calling a Circle of Curious Complexity for interdependent leaders and deep thinkers to get together, hang out and get support each other. Even though I had some trepidation, the first one happened a few weeks ago and it was, well, pretty bloody great.

There is a Circle meetup once a month and a Circle supper.

For the first meetup, four of us… met up in my lounge to hang out and do a thing.

We started with M&S ready meals (I know how to treat you proper) then checked in with a colour for our mood (thanks Suriya!) and why we’d wanted to come.

Then we experimented with a process I’ve been meaning to experiment with from The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures.

The Process

Basically, the… client?… has a thing they could do with more time exploring. Could be a problem, but also could be an opportunity, a situation, a challenge, a thing.

They talk about it for two or three minutes. People in the coach role can ask clarifying questions.

Then the client sits in silence whilst for ten minutes coaches just ask whatever questions they can think of that might be helpful.

The client goes on to reflect back what their experience was, and what changed.

First go

Well. The first person tried it and it was really strange. They said it was hard to have a smart question that made them think deeply followed swiftly by another one. Then another one. Then another.

As question-asker, I think we had all felt it too.

Here’s the bit that made it magic

We then moved into a mode of thinking ‘What could make this work?’

Would it be better if we recorded our questions for you to listen to afterwards?
Would it be better if we recorded the questions and you were OUT OF THE ROOM?
Would it be better if you signalled when you were ready for a new question?
What about if we wrote down the questions?

That become the next iteration.

The client described their situation, took clarifying questions, then in silence we wrote down our more probing questions on index cards and put them near the client. When they were ready, they picked them up one by one.

This worked really well. There was no pressure on the question-asker or the question-receiver. Plus no worry about forgetting a question as you knew you were going to walk away with all the questions literally in your hand.

Then we added in an extra step with the next person - as we came to the end of the allotted time, someone asked ‘What’s the one question you’re censoring yourself from asking? Write it down.’

We realised that 10 minutes was actually way more time than was needed. Six minutes was plenty.

After everyone had been a client we reflected on the whole process

We talked about how useful it was to hear the reflections from the client after they’d received the questions - that we would like the option to ask one more question.

Someone said, ‘Well, the thing that I’m missing is… you’re smart people. I don’t just want your questions. I kind of want your advice too.’

New format for getting help with A Thing

We suggested next time we would do:

* Client describes their situation (1-3 mins)

* Coaches ask clarifying questions (1 min)

* Coaches write down questions on index cards (6 mins)

* Client reflects back what has shifted/what was useful (1 min)

* (Optional) Client can ask for one piece of feedback or one more question from each coach - written or spoken (3 mins)

Total of 15 minutes of, like, incredibly helpful intervention.

My experience

My partners are going to be away for a few weeks at a time, several times a year and I asked about how I could make that time positive and nourishing, rather than something I just endure (or feel like I waste).

The questions were WILDLY helpful. So many things I hadn’t thought of.

This whole experience really demonstrated the beauty of the Circle

Not only was the intervention deep and light, but also the form was held lightly and we experimented and iterated on the fly. It was fun and emotional and engaging every minute of the two hours.

This won’t be the format of every Circle meetup but maybe once a quarter?

Anyhoo. EXCITING!

If you’re in Brum here’s a description of the whole Circle concept

https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Circle-of-Curious-Complexity--ASheLqBhb36tPb3tPtVFDxe6Ag-0ssq5pTN1DDwv0zMCS62g

If you’d like to come to the next meetup on Tuesday 4th December here’s the link

https://attending.io/events/cofccmeetupdec

Feel free to share with other human-and-humane leaders/deep thinkers who might want a some warm company.

Why questions and silence are important

Ever had that moment where someone says something and it’s such a profound truth the room goes silent, but filled with presence?

That happened to me on Monday, and I was the one speaking.

I had been guiding the Enrol Yourself Birmingham team through some exploration of how to grow our capacity to deal with complexity. We’d moved through extending timelines, increasing the breadth and depth of empathy, and pattern-spotting.

Then it came time for me to get the brains and hearts of this really smart group on my area of inquiry.

The moment came when we had been talking about a circle I’m holding twice a month for humane leaders and deep thinkers. I was feeling a strange mix of pretty sure it was a good thing, as well as holding back from committing.

We’d been talking through a bunch of stuff and then Rachel asked me the pattern-spotting question we’d been practicing: ‘What does this whole situation remind you of?’ I closed my eyes and felt into it.

And suddenly I got it. ‘It’s like when I’d be in school plays that I was convinced were amazing, and when I look back they were awful. I’m scared that I’m going to think the circle is great and then later find out that everyone was rolling their eyes at me.’ Profound silence.

Luckily this group is, as my friend Jane identified, an amazing mix of both smart and vulnerable. We aren’t scared of silence.

Everyone made eye contact with me, smiled gently. 'When you look back now, do you feel the same?’ I realised that of course I looked with much more compassion. ‘I was just a kid. Plus… I wasn’t the director…' Then Mikayla asked the killer question, the one that pulled a whispered reaction out of me. ‘What did everyone else in the play feel?’ ‘We all thought it was great.’ ‘SO the people it was FOR thought it was great?’ Oooooh.

That was the one.

The people it was FOR thought it was great.

The circle will be great FOR THE PEOPLE IT'S FOR. 

Such a beautiful confluence of the right group, the right questions and the capability to listen in silence. 

First circle is tonight at mine, btw. Email me for details. 😊

Culture change starts somewhere

I've been working as the 'Culture Gardener' at Vanti for about a year, helping them to move towards a scalable, agile, inclusive culture whilst preserving the great things that already exist.

I wrote about it in five posts on their site. We thought it was important to mark where the company is starting from, so that in months and years to come everyone can look back and see the distance we've traveled. It can be easy to look at successes and think 'It's easy for them,' so these posts are reference points for how things are now.

Thought you might want a window into a tech company that is doing groundbreaking things to become an amazing place to work.

1. We’re brewing some exciting culture stuff…

This post lays out the framework we're working towards.

https://www.vanti.co.uk/2018/07/culture-kick-off-2018/

2. Vanti’s strengths

Vanti has a lot of strengths already. Here's where I outline them from my perpective.

https://www.vanti.co.uk/2018/07/vanti-strengths/

3. Some big challenges we face

There are some big external/slow-moving challenges that we're facing.

https://www.vanti.co.uk/2018/08/big-challenges/

4. People questions we’re looking at

I split the questions we're working into two sections. People questions... 

https://www.vanti.co.uk/2018/08/people-questions/

5. System questions we’re looking at

...and system questions.

https://www.vanti.co.uk/2018/08/system-questions/

I am LOVING working inside a company rather than just visiting. Culture change work is fascinating - you have to have long timelines in your mind, listen a lot, and start from where everyone is. I'll keep you posted as we do more. 

Framing the meeting

This is something that I’ve ended up talking to a lot of senior coaching clients about in different formats recently. I see people coming to them for meetings and not using the time wisely, and these are people whose diaries are incredibly full - I know because they have to battle to keep their appointments with me! This practice comes from a few patterns that I noticed in conversation with them:

• leaders making forays into collaborative ways of running meetings but not getting the results they wanted (or secretly wanting people to collaborate, ahem, in a particular direction!)

• meetings overrunning, to the detriment of the leader’s mental health/effectiveness

• leaders wanting to grow a culture of collaboration but not knowing how to really grow different behaviours and attitudes

• leaders developing into a more tuning-fork sense of being a leader, but people around them not really getting it.

A lot of my inspiration for these ideas is rooted in the incredible work of Sam Kaner and the Community At Work team. Their book “The Facilitator’s Guide To Participatory Decision Making” changed my life as a someone who holds the space for groups. Some of the idea of creating a process sequence and sharing it comes from my reading of Roger Schwarz, particularly his take on Unilateral vs Mutual Learning (itself an evolution of the work of Argyris and Schön, et al). He also influenced my thinking on the transparency of meta-comments (“I’m aware I’m not saying something to you, so I’m just going to come out and say it…”).

The Practice

Implemented well, Framing The Meeting allows for more productive and timely meetings that achieve their aims, but also more peace of mind for all concerned. Over time, this practice can build capacity and capability for more consciousness during meetings, for people interested in leading leaders.

This is how you do it.

I see two main ways of starting with this practice.

A. Being the framing guardian

There are many aspects to this.

Type: What type of meeting is this?

Is it a chat? Is it a consultation? Are you giving information? Is it a communal consensus-building meeting?

Outcomes and Decisions: What are you hoping is going to happen by the end of the meeting? Will there be a decision made, and if so, how?

Are there particular questions you are hoping to have answers to? Are there agreements that need to be put in place? Is it ‘just’ that you have both heard each others’ thoughts? Will there be an action plan?

If there is a decision to be made, who will be making it and how? Will you be consulting but ultimately making the decision? Will people vote? Do you have the deciding vote? If it’s by consensus, then does that mean everyone’s enthusiastic consent (ie can anyone veto it?) Or will you summarise and then check for any deep concerns, and otherwise go ahead?

Process: What are the big process chunks?

How do you see the meeting going? Is there an input phase? Who’s going to go first? Then who? Will there be discussion? If there is a decision/plan to be made, how much time will you need to keep for that?

(Although this seems complex and unwieldy, in most situations it just takes seconds.)

Reality check: Are we all on the same page?

If it’s been you laying all this out, now it’s time to (genuinely) check: Is that what the other people expected? Do they want to add to/alter the plan in any way?

Time: How much time have we got?

I always check with the other person how much time they have  - sometimes things have shifted, or one or the other of us was late. It’s important to know that in advance. Also, as the process guardian, its your job to neutrally say how much time is left maybe half-way through and as you’re nearing the end of the allotted time. If things are taking longer than planned, you transparently adjust the plan.

B Jointly design the framing

Jointly designing the framing involves the same aspects as above, but encouraging everyone to build the framing together. Many if not most people are unaware of the process of meetings, so you may need to build their process consciousness over time via being a visible process guardian.

But if you put out feeler-questions at the beginning (“What are you hoping is going to happen by the end of this meeting? Is there a decision to be made?”) and people respond well, it can be good to get their input - maybe before yours - then co-designing the process to include everyone’s inputs.

(How are you holding yourself to truly welcome co-creation? Do you have any tension around it? Some meetings need to be sharp and to the point - that’s part of your framing!)

Maybe after a time, people come to expect that when they have a meeting with you, they need to come prepared with these kinds of process thoughts. And perhaps they can then take them into their own meetings.

Again, I’m making this sound cumbersome, but it really can just be a couple of minutes at the beginning of the meeting which make sure you’re all aware of each others’ expectations. And sometimes you both agree you just want an unstructured chat and that’s what happens!

Applications

Even if you don’t have many meetings, you can practice this with conversations.

Timing

Simple things like “We’re half-way through our time. How are we doing, do you think?” or “You said you wanted to ask me some questions and i’m aware we’re ten minutes from the end. Do you want to ask me them now, or would you prefer to continue as we are and leave them for another time?” can introduce aspects of framing without being too cumbersome.

One of the ways I started was by starting a meeting or conversation with “Can I just check how long you’ve got? We’ve got this booked until 11.30. Do you need to run away at that time?” Knowing in advance that there is a limited time allows you to not leave things for when the other person might be distracted.

Signposting

Adding in signposting comments can be a simple way of introducing consciousness, even in a traditional meeting with an agenda as well as conversations. “So we’ve just covered points one and two… are we still okay to move on to point three?”

Checking in

I find that pausing and finding out how the other person is doing can really help bring awareness back up to the framing/process level.

Come clean

An inner practice that I try to implement is noticing when I’m hiding what I’m thinking or feeling and somehow ‘managing’ the other person. I then try and step out of the meeting by saying something like, “I think you’ve gotten a little reticent in the past couple of minutes and I’m avoiding asking if you’re okay. Can i just check: Is everything okay?”

This level of transparency often allows a deepening of the conversation so neither party are wearing heavy masks. Even coming clean about the fact you’re practicing framing meetings better can help you do it better!

How does this sit with you?

This was published in an edited form in Street Smart Awareness - a collection of practices that focus on developing in-the-moment wisdom.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38088800-street-smart-awareness-and-inquiry-in-action

First time, last time - A practical way to get out of a rut

After meditating for a few years, I realised I had fallen in a rut. I was running on a (peaceful) autopilot. I don’t remember how I hit on this practice, but it rejuvenated my meditation and I started using it for other times when I felt like I was in routine or bored and it really helped. It harnesses the benefits of being ‘mindful’ but gives me a route in, rather than connecting to an abstract or mind-y concept.

The Practice

First Time/Last Time is so simple I can’t even believe I’m describing it. It can be applied when you’re going to a situation where you think you know what to expect, or something routine like getting on the bus, having a meeting, making dinner, hanging out with your significant person.

Here’s how I do it.

First time

Imagine this is the first time you’re doing this activity.

What would you notice if this were the first time?

What would you be feeling if this were the first time? (I’m an inveterate starter, so the first time doing something is exciting to me!)

What leeway would you give yourself in terms of expectations if this were your first time?

Last time

Now imagine this is the last time you’ll ever do this.

What care would you give this activity if this were the last time?

What would you feel if this were the last time? (I often feel a kind of fond nostalgia…)

How much effort would you put in if you know you’d never do this again?

First time/last time

Can you allow both of these possibilities at once? What if this were the first and the last time you ever did this? What if it were the only time?

What would you notice if it were the first and last time?

What would feel if this were the first and last time?

What freedom is there in letting this be the first and last time you do this?

Applications

The thing is, there is more than an element of fundamental truth about all three steps. It is the first time you’ve done this activity, today, in this way. It is the last time you’ll do it right now, in this way. And one day, it really will be the last time! Either because you stop doing it, or because you’re not doing anything anymore.

At different times, this practice can freshen my approach, supply me with more energy, reconnect me with my body and allow an escape from sleepiness.

Where in your life are you doing things on autopilot?

This practice was just published in an edited form in Street Smart Awareness, a really accessible book on really grounded practices for developing wisdom in the moment.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38088800-street-smart-awareness-and-inquiry-in-action

The leaders we need

As leaders and organisers we want to be doing the wise thing at the right time.

In order to do that, we need to grow our capacity and capability:

• To think in terms of multiple timelines. We need to be able to be in the moment right now, to think about next week and next month, as well as thinking ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years ahead.

• To look this messy, broken, beautiful world in the eye. By the way, this includes your messy, broken, beautiful organisation! There’s something profound and necessary about not turning away from complexity, from non-binary spectrums, from uncertainty, paradox and mess. Sometimes we want things neat and they’re just NOT. In fact, if you can be somewhat at peace with the chaotic truth of the world, you can still do stuff, you can still take wise and timely action, instead of freezing or getting overwhelmed.

• To spot systemic patterns and flows of history. The ability to go ‘This is (partially) an example of this...’, or ‘This is a bit like this and this…’ or ‘Something like this has happened before…’  means you can discover links that allow deeper change to happen.

• To embrace your own humanity and the humanity of others. The ability to include more and more people’s perspectives, in deeper and deeper ways, is a hallmark of someone who can find plans and solutions that are sustainable and supported, robust and inclusive.

• To be aware of your awareness. Thinkers like MIT’s Otto Scharmer have a hunch: the element that determines the effectiveness of a system intervention is the quality of awareness of the intervenor. What you’re aware of and how warm, how open, how gently focused, how wide, how still you are when thinking, listening, speaking, doing, is key key key to how deep your influence can be.

We need to aim towards these capabilities because the challenges we face as individuals, groups, organisations, humans and as a planet require them. Siloed thinking that operates from simple causality is what got us into this mess.

The planet

We are already on the cusp of irreversible environmental disaster and although some of the actions required are clear, how to make them happen, particularly at scale, demands all the subtlety of thinking outlined above if we have any chance of keeping a planet that is capable of sustaining human life.

Social justice for everyone

We live in a world that harbours a huge one-way imbalance of power. People of Colour, queer people, trans and non-binary people, women, disabled people, poor people (and people who live at the intersections of more than one of the above identities) are constantly harmed just for existing in the world.

If we are to create a world that is supportive for ALL people, then leaders and organisers have to do in-depth, often tumultuous, transformational work. We have to learn to nurture the parts of us that have been programmed to feel less-than and melt the parts of us that have been programmed to feel better-than.

We also need to dismantle the oppressive systems around us that are rooted in racism, slavery, genocide and colonialism, and grow new ones that are collective and radically inclusive, so there is true equity in who makes decisions and who holds power and resources. This goes so far beyond laughably simplistic ‘diversity’ thinking.

We also have to face the fact that our ways of living are already forcing millions of people to live in horrific conditions. Reconsidering the way we live as individuals, organisations and countries is vital if we are to look after all of humanity, not just a wealthy, lucky few.

Organisations

The world is only becoming more complex and volatile. Organisations that cling to outdated models of hierarchy and siloed outcomes will only fall behind, if they survive at all. Nimble, self-organising, responsive organisations with inclusion, sustainability and equity at their heart are the ones that will survive and thrive. We need leaders who can plant the seeds and nurture the spaces for these organisations to grow, and that is a complex, challenging path-that-isn’t-yet-a-path.

Groups

Humans, particularly western humans, don’t know how to meet in groups. Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless identified the Big Five ways that we tend to meet - presentation, open discussion, managed discussion, brainstorm and status update - as holding inequality at their core. We need to find ways to meet which include as many voices as possible, which use participatory ways of making decisions, which deal productively with the natural conflict and deadlock that happen even in healthy groups. Neither bombastic, black-and-white thinkers nor I’ll-find-the-answer-for-you lead-from-the-front leaders are going to do a tenth as well as people who genuinely know we each hold only a piece of the truth.

Conversations

Most of how we interact with other people is through one-on-one conversations. Knowing how to actually listen, how to not shy away from awkward conversations and stay present (even in the midst of conflict and strong emotions) are tough skills to develop and maintain. They need flexible thought, responsibility and boundaries that move beyond rigid certainty. They also require a knowledge of power differences and an awareness of intention and impact as societal inequalities play out even in our close relationships.

Yourself

You’re good at getting stuff done in the world, you’re smart, you know how to influence, you hit your numbers, but when you look up at the world, you see how much is still broken. You care sometimes so much that it’s hard to switch off. You see that you can’t do it all, but don’t see much alternative. You struggle with the seeming intractability of the people around you, of the frustrating rollercoaster of translating your vision into real reality.

These pressures, these tensions don’t have to stall you. They can transform you, if we hold them in the right way. Mainly we evolve when life forces us to. Knowing how to be healthily at the edge of our current capacity is how we grow in functional (as opposed to dysfunctional!) ways. There’s wisdom to be found when we’re in over our heads...

Only by working on all of these things can you become the leader you long to be and, frankly, a leader the world needs.

Are you opening or closing?

I seemed to come to a new understanding of an old question today.

Listening to Pema Chödrön, the Buddhist nun, on an audiobook this morning and she was suggesting (I paraphrase) you pay attention to the question: ‘Are you opening or closing?’

Those of you who’ve hung out near me will know over the years I’ve talked a lot about clenching and unclenching.

Today, I notice that I close a lot. Especially in response to overwhelm at others’ sadness.

I close to my best friend having a terrible time.

I close to people in a FB group I’m in who are putting out requests for money and support.

I closed the other day when reading about the Great Barrier Reef bleaching white and basically dying. I often close to the facts of global warming and imminent/growing climate crisis.

I close to reports of the reality in Syria, Yemen, Burma…

I close to Trump, to Brexit, to possible nuclear war.

I close to Z when he is having a less than positive moment.

I close when wandering through the Christmas shopping mayhem thinking about people in the future asking why we didn’t stop buying stuff.

I close when I think that children have mined the ingredients of my Mac, my phone.

I close when I read about my friends having a hard time, struggling in the world the way it’s currently set up.

What I’ve realised today is that when I notice the closing and don’t turn away (either from the trigger or from the act of closing) I can take more action.

I can contact my best friend rather than letting another day go by without properly saying anything to her.

I can donate *some* money to *some* people in the group, rather than turning away in guilt and not supporting anyone.

I can continue to read books that offer clear-eyed ways forward to the climate crisis (like Doughnut Economics that looks at both social justice and the earth).

When I stay open to the closing (and maybe sometimes open more), I can take more action.

So, that’s my focus right now. Asking ‘Am I closing or am I opening?’ and noticing what happens when I, well, notice.

If it's broke, did you break it? (a Twitter parable)

On Friday, a simple coaching question filled a hole in my life.

I've loved Twitter for years - like YEARS and years. I love that you can connect with someone and there's no pressure on you to spend a lot of energy maintaining that connection (loose ties, innit?) and there's no pressure on their side to reciprocate.

I've kind of fallen out of love with Twitter in the past year, but, boy, we had it good for a long while.

I had a ragtag community of weirdos who would support each other when things were tough. I made some real friends, a couple of which I would think of as some of my closest friends, even though we might have only met or Skyped once or twice.

Twitter friendship is hard to explain.

We laughed, we cried, we hashtagged. Some people hired me. People (including, like, real editors) proofread things. Experts gave me informed advice. Conferences offered me speaking gigs. Personally, professionally, it was great. 

But more than anything, Twitter was like the best coffeeshop/breakroom you could imagine, filled with cool people WHO GOT YOUR JOKES. It was like living in the writers' room of the first four seasons of the Gilmore Girls.

Like any relationship, things changed.

And then I saw my friend Sas post on Facebook that she had deleted her Twitter account, because it wasn't like it used to be.

So, I went to Twitter and asked the question:

"Is it me or is Twitter broken? Is it time to leave?"

And for the next two days I had the best, warmest interaction I'd had online for maybe two or three years. We tweeted like it was 2012.

Some people shared my concern.

Some people said they still liked Twitter for certain things, but it was a harder place.

Some only used it for links and super-breaking news.

But others said they still loved Twitter, that it was a source of support and love and interest even now.

One of the common threads amongst these crazy idealists was that they did a fair bit of curation - lists, blocking, liberal (small 'l') unfollowing.

And it made me remember that I had a private list (called 'Checky') that I hadn't been to in maybe four years.

A list is a place you can visit where you say "When I'm here, I only want to see tweets from these specific people."

I clicked on that list and of course, all the old people were still there - I'd just been missing their tweets in amongst all the rest of the people I'd followed.

And I remembered: that's how I used to manage Twitter - I used to visit Checky more than my main timeline.

Then I thought some more.

I'd just regained some amazing interaction - like, stunning, heartwarming, the-old-band-is-getting-back-together interaction - and why?

Well, I'd asked an honest question. I'd then responded to the responses. LIKE I USED TO ALL THE TIME.

I'd been treating Twitter like a chore. Or worse: like (don't say it) INSTAGRAM. I'd been posting a photo once a day with a tiny message.

Pecking Twitter on the cheek.

Instead, I showed up. And my people showed up.

I realised: if Twitter was broken, it was because I broke it.

So, if you've got a situation that isn't like the old days... are you doing the things you used to do in the old days?

I mean, sure, things change. In the past two years I've had many more local friends here in Birmingham than I ever had in the Caravan Office years when we lived with my Mum-in-law or even when I was in Singapore. Twitter used to serve a really important emotional role back then.

So, yes, your environment might have changed.

And, yes, sometimes things are broken.

But before you totally throw in the towel ask yourself:

Did I break this? Can I fix it? What did I used to do? Can I just start doing that again?

You never know. Maybe it's not as broke as you thought.

Two questions that might grow your leadership agility

I was in Boston a couple of weeks ago on a training course, learning how to use a tool that helps assess leadership agility. (I'm going to be using it with coaching clients as an initial assessment plus maybe a progress check once or twice a year. I normally shy away from tools and profiles, but this one is based on the heroic/post-heroic leadership model I mentioned earlier, so it has a lot of depth.)

As we were examining the transition from less agile to more agile levels of leadership, one of the several capacities that jumps out is the ability to step back from a situation and see it in its bigger context.

In short, the wider and broader and more inclusive a perspective a leader is able to take, the more agile the leader.

Working with this stage development model, I've realised that a lot of what I ask leaders and teams to do may well be beyond what they are currently capable of.

For example, one of the things that I recommend in How to improve other people's terrible meetings is to notice what's happening and label it. If three people are talking at once, or certain people are doing all the talking or you have five items in a 45-minute meeting and you're 30 minutes in and still on the first item... say exactly that. Not in an accusing way - just in a way that allows everyone to get conscious of what's happening.

Thing is: noticing what's happening in the moment, let alone how it fits into a pattern, is not necessarily a capacity everyone has developed.

Equals: sometimes I might be setting people up for failure.

Same when you're doing anti-oppression work - you have to gain the capacity to be able to see who's talking and who's not talking. Who's interrupting and who is allowed to finish a thought. Who's in the room in the first place.

For example, white people are trained not to notice when we're in an all-white room. We're all conditioned to shut up when a white man speaks. White men are conditioned to interrupt pretty much anyone who isn't a white man.

Consciousness of that takes practice.

Most meetings rattle along in a particular groove - even if there's a plan. People don't always know if they're in a consultation meeting or if they're actually making a decision or is it just updates?

Teams seem like they're having the same meeting again and again because it's hard to spot patterns.

Our brain spots physical patterns very easily. Too easily in fact. We think cars have faces.

But spotting patterns in situations that are separated in time - that's hard.

Historians are yelling at us that what is happening politically is a repeat of a pattern that has happened before.

I noticed that when I was re-establishing habits this week I almost sabotaged myself.

I'm trying to do some things daily (language learning, fitness and so on) and the pattern I fall into is going, "That's not enough! If you do the maths, by the end of the year you won't have done much at ALL. LET'S DO MORE!"

Then I, well, do more for about two-and-a-half weeks, then something changes in my routine and I fall out of the habit, feel bad, start forgetting and two months later, it's all over. At the end of the year, I have done much less than I would have done if I'd done a tiny amount.

Having been through this pattern enough in the past FORTY-ONE YEARS, I was able to spot it.

So I asked myself, "What's the SMALLEST amount I could do every day?" So instead of doing FIVE lessons on Duolingo on BOTH Spanish and German, how about I do one of each?

If you've ever taught something more than a couple of times, or worked on a helpdesk, you know that the person's questions that seem so specific and original to them, are one of the same five that everyone has. You have a broader context that just their phone call, so you can easily help them.

Leaders who are able to place their organisation's work in global, historical, societal contexts are more likely to support truly innovative, timely interventions.

So: spotting patterns? Important.

Repetition may well help you see patterns, but only when the thing happens again and again and AGAIN.

I wonder if we could speed this process along by asking two questions:

1. What is happening right now?
2. What is this an example of?

In meetings, in your organisation, in politics, in your relationships, in the privacy of your own head.

Spotting what is happening is a skill, then seeing the pattern is another one.

And if it leads to us being more agile, making better decisions, stopping history repeating itself, that may well be a very good thing.

Our fear of public speaking is not simple.

Our fear of public speaking is not simple.

I mean, part of it comes from mechanical things - not knowing how to plan, how to make slides, how to tell stories, how to deal with Q&A, even how to "deal" with top-layer "nerves" - but for a while I've been sensing something deeper.

I think there's two things - one sharper, one more insidious.

First, there's past experiences. Did you have a bad experience at school which made you scared to stand up in front of a group? How did your parents do? Did they encourage you to speak up? Was your voice nurtured?

Those things cut deep. You don't get over them without some significant effort.

Secondly, even if you left school unscathed and your parents did a good job... there's society.

Being a person who has any kind of empathy or feeling or vulnerability in a society that values logic and rationality above all else does not set you up to easily speak out.

Dysfunctional corporate culture does not support you sticking your neck out.

Being a Person of Colour in a white supremacist society systematically undermines any deep safety you have about speaking out, that your words and thoughts are valued.

Being a woman or femme in a patriarchal society undermines your sense of safety in speaking out.

Being trans in a deeply transphobic society does not lead to safety in speaking out.

Being any flavour of queer in a heterocentric society undermines your sense of safety in speaking out.

Having a disability in an ableist society undermines your sense of safety in speaking out.

Being non-gender-conforming in a society that polices gender roles as tightly as ours does undermines your sense of safety in speaking out.

Being working class in a society run by and for the rich undermines your feeling that your words are valued.

Living in the intersection of any of those identities insidiously compounds and compounds that lack of safety.

And yet, presentations and speaking out in meetings, speaking "publicly", is a part of most of our lives.

So what am I saying?

Yes, learn the "mechanical" aspects, the skills of doing a presentation. Hell, I wrote a whole, very detailed book on how to do just that.

Yes, even learn the (somewhat) mechanical skills of lowering adrenaline and dealing with nerves.

And and and...have compassion for yourself. If you are, at times, scared of speaking up, speaking out, just know that the very fabric of our society supports only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of people to feel safe and valued in being visible.

So, speak out, but be gentle on yourself when you do.

More post-heroic leadership, please

This year: I'm looking into how I can support more people to evolve into post-heroic leaders.

At the Gandalfesque instigation of the wise Indy Johar, I've spent the past few months reading, thinking about and being trained in a framework of human development which makes a lot of intuitive as well as science-y sense. It's weirdly little-known, despite having more than four decades of research behind it.

As we make sense of increasing uncertainty and complexity, we evolve through clear stages. This framework tracks these stages and, in the part I've been looking at, applies them to leadership.

Most management/leadership education is based on moving people from an expert orientation to what we would think of as a fully-fledged manager.

People whose current centre of gravity sits in the expert stage have strong problem-solving skills within their clearly-defined domain but manage each member of their team individually (more like a supervisor).

Fully-fledged managers are focused on outcomes and results, think strategically, are good at getting buy-in, manage teams as teams with regular meetings, give regular good-quality developmental feedback... the whole shebang.

Where I'm particularly interested is in the crossover to later, and much rarer, stages of development.

If you were to think of the above two stages as conventional development, the next phase is a move into post-conventional stages.

In the first of several post-conventional stages, a leader begins to turn outwards, seeing all the members of their team as leaders, and holds a space for new solutions and initiatives to develop from a deep sense of the intrinsic value of collaboration. They draw a much more porous boundary around the concept of stakeholders, and they are able to see the lenses they look through as just that - lenses.

Rather more evocatively, two writers in this field label this transition as moving from heroic leadership to post-heroic leadership.

Heroic leaders, no matter how inclusive and strategic they are, still have themselves at the centre of the process. Even though not necessarily single-handedly, they are still the one making the change happen, judging the correct course, the "hero" who is saving the day.

Post-heroic leaders, however, whilst still potentially driving the momentum of an initiative, see that they hold just one part of the truth. They see that involving people doesn't just build buy-in, but actually means a significantly better end result. They lead leaders.

Particularly in our increasingly volatile, wickedly complex world of slow-building danger, we need more leaders who can hold a space for inclusive change to grow.

Charismatic leaders are dangerous. Being able to allow timely movements to crystalise may just be a key to, I don't know, stopping this clusterhell we're in.

So, in 2017, I'm going to see how I can support more post-heroic leadership.

#gandalfesqueisaword

The transformational power of being aware of your awareness

A couple of weeks ago, I was sat in the park with a coaching client (What? They needed to get out!) and they said their organisation was using a leadership model. Inside, I did an eye-roll - in fact, it might have spilled over into an outside one. I find typologies and questionnaires and Models (tm) tiresome and limiting. People fall in love with them too entirely as the saviour and the way (and, hey, I've been there) but we shrugged and said, well, if it's useful and gives you insight, and it's held loosely, then it can be worthwhile.

As I looked more at the model they are using, I got more interested. Then I ordered the guy's book and got more interested. Then I ordered books by the author's intellectual siblings and, I don't know, it's got me. The broader concept at least, if not only the expression by this author.

There are two main ideas that William Torbert puts forward in his book Action Inquiry. The second, and most... graspable one is that there are stages of human development that leaders (in whatever way we're describing that) can move through. Four of these 'action-logics' happen pretty naturally for lots of people (referred to as 'conventional') and three of them are less common and perhaps need more cultivation (the 'post-conventional' stages). This concept of ego development has been looked at quite a lot by a bunch of scholar-practitioners and seems to have some academic and practical legs.

You get assessed by completing 36 (I think) sentences stems such as "A good leader..." or "When an employee steps out of line..." and a trained assessor gives you the results. So far, so unsurprising.

I like the idea, however, that these stages are mutable and an evolution of consciousness of the one before, and therefore not largely fixed like personality typologies such as Myers-Briggs'"16 personality types".

It's also clear that one doesn't move lightly from one stage to the next, but that that evolution happens over months and years. It's not necessarily without turbulence as it requires letting go of parts of your worldview and increasingly expanding what you pay attention to and how.

The evidence suggests (as far as I understand - this is new to me so I haven't really had the chance to look at the studies) that organisational transformation only happens when the leader of an organisation - and potentially their team - operate from post-conventional 'action-logics'.

The part of this that currently has me really interested is that as you progress, particularly to post-conventional action-logics, it depends on shifts in the quality of your moment-to-moment awareness.

Which is where Action Inquiry comes in, the first part of the book. Action Inquiry is the ability to be taking action and be aware of the action you're taking at the sametime and therefore able to pivot to take the right action in that moment.

Kind of.

It's posited that there are four time horizons:

- moment-to-moment emergencies and opportunities
- day-to-day routine - maybe with a three month awareness
- goal-based awareness stretching to, say, three years
- vision-style thought that thinks maybe 20 years ahead.

These map to four aspects of experience:

- the external world
- your actions
- your thoughts, feelings, goals, action-logics
- vision and the quality of your awareness

and also to four aspects of communication.

The point that speaks to me at the moment is that if you can hold awareness ALL THE TIME of

- the present moment/external world AND
- your actions and routine AND
- your thoughts/feelings/goals AND
- vision/awareness

that that will transform aspects of your consciousness.

And I keep coming back to a particular phrase, that you hold this quality of awareness and allow each aspect to be vulnerable to transformation.

Can we stay conscious and hold our actions to be vulnerable to transformation?

Can we also allow our goals and thinking to be vulnerable to transformation?

Can we also allow our vision and awareness, our sense of purpose to be vulnerable to transformation?

I think there's something in that, you know.

So my current focus is two-fold:

Can I do all of that?
Can I help you to do all of that?

It happens that I'm sitting in the Quaker centre just opposite Euston station in London as I'm typing this. The Quakers are very focused on what happens when you sit in silence together and keep your awareness of what that together-silence is like.

The Quakers are one set of people with one way of evolving your awareness. There are many others. As a long-term meditator, I work daily on the quality of awareness in my meditation AND remembering to be aware during the rest of the day (which is really bloody hard/impossible, just to be clear).

Seems to me that, whatever stage you are of leading whatever it is you want to lead, that moving towards this quadruple-level of awareness can only be...good. Useful. Potentially transformational.

I'm gonna experiment. You?