Recharge 100

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney


go slow
Our modern way of living teaches us that faster is better. Speed is the new king and our lives are measured in bits and bytes, dissected into milliseconds and micro-detail. Is it any wonder our health, relationships, sex lives and performance begin to suffer?

We are not designed to go flat out, around the clock. Life is meant to be a series of sprints interspersed with periods of rest and recovery. It is impossible to be ‘on’ 24/7. While we regularly need to boost the throttle into turbo drive and plough through those To Do lists, it is equally – and vitally – important to spend time in cruise mode, or time going slow. The challenge is our culture has conditioned us to think that slow is evil; slow is seen to be the enemy of achievement. Slow is perceived as weak, passive, soft. Nothing could be further from the truth.

the slow movement
As humans are becoming more and more disconnected from the things that really matter, the slow movement offers a return to a connected lifestyle. The slow movement? Yes, really. It’s a loosely connected international movement that’s aimed at providing an alternative to today’s fractured, fast-paced, and increasingly unhappy, overworked and burnt out world. It’s all about slowing down life’s pace, and taking time to enjoy the things that give us pleasure. It’s about reconnecting with food, with people, with place, with life: these are the things that offer us meaning.

hapa hapa
Hapa Hapa is Swahili for ‘slowly, slowly’, and this concept is much more part of the African culture. When I was a middle distance runner, every summer the Kenyans would come out and train with us for a few months. Looking back, I failed to heed the lessons they were teaching us. Train hard and recover hard. The Kenyans use to do 3 things – run, eat and sleep! In contrast, whenever I felt really tired I’d keep ploughing ahead (as do so many athletes) thinking that all I needed was to get some more miles in the bank and then everything would come good. In retrospect, I really do believe I would have run much faster if I had taken more notice of the Kenyans and rested more when I felt tired. In other words, adding some Hapa Hapa and going SLOW in order to go FAST.

recovery in sport
My good friend, David Misson, introduced a recovery system with the Sydney Swans a few years back where players accumulate 100 points each week to ensure they are recovering properly for the upcoming game. An elite AFL player can cover more than 20 km in a game, and the majority of this at high intensity. With so much energy being expended on game day, the primary focus in between games is managing injuries and getting the players ready to peak again, ready to perform. Each week the players tally their recovery activities, different tasks are weighted according to their ability to facilitate recovery for the upcoming game. An ice bath or a massage might be twenty points, yoga scores twenty-five points, an easy stretch ten points and so on. During the pointy end of the season, Misso gets the players to double their weekly targets and aims for 200 recovery points each week.

the recovery toolbox
The Recovery Toolbox is based on a format similar to Misso’s point system. In the business world we try and play a five-day test match every week, a Grand Slam every fortnight, and an AFL Grand Final every day. Is it any wonder we are continually tired?

The Recovery Toolbox combines both indoor and outdoor activities, with the total goal being 100 points a week. Add Indoor activities plus outdoor activities for the previous week and tally your score. How did you go?

cross-recovering
So rather than getting 100 points by dancing four times a week (or choosing any of the other activities where you score 25 points four times a week!), I’d like you to accumulate points from a range of activities. You’ll notice these activities are predominantly ‘slow’ tasks. Fitness enthusiasts often feel ripped off when they first see this scale. Fitness junkies do everything hard and fast – but the simple fact is that going to the gym and belting out a Pump Class, or riding your bike up a mountain for four hours, while great for strength and cardiovascular fitness, doesn’t really help you recover and press the ‘re’ button.
30 weeks of 100 recovery points

Why don’t you give it a go? Set yourself a four week period and see how your scores add up.

For thirty weeks of the year I want you to flip the switch and make sure you focus on recovering properly. Think back to the Recovery Toolbox. Each week your goal is to get 100 recovery points. Why not buy a notebook and fill out your recovery points every week so you ensure that you make it up to your goal of 100 points, thirty weeks a year?

And what about the other twenty-two weeks of the year? You’re not entirely off the hook. The remainder of the time, your goal is to get a minimum of 70 points each week. So aim to get 100 points when you can, and when it’s just not possible, make it a 70-point week.

Happy recovering!

Multitasking: Productivity Boosteror Mother of All Evil?

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney



Where did it all go wrong? I remember sitting in a corporate training workshop nearly 10 years ago and the presenter told us that ‘multitasking was an essential skill to survive in the modern era. If you can’t multi task – you’ll get spat out the back of the pack!’ And it made so much sense at the time too. Of course it would be more efficient to do two or three things at once. And surely this would mean we would then be able to tick off every item on our daily To Do Lists and get home on time, or get to the gym earlier, or take the dog for another walk, or maybe even try out that fishing rod I bought 2 years ago but has been sitting in the garage gathering dust... To add even more ‘down time’ to our hectic lives, we would also have a lot more leisure time considering all of the advancements and improvements technology was going to make in the workplace.

Why wouldn’t I be excited? Improved efficiency from multitasking + added leisure time from more efficient use of technology in the workplace = a world that is more relaxed, balanced and a better place to live in...

But where did it all go wrong? Why does the above equation sound so great in theory but so foreign in reality? We have become slaves to the technology that was supposedly going to free us and multitasking just gives us more half finished projects that are added to an already expanding to do list. Sound familiar?

The gadgets designed to enlighten our loads actually ensnare us. The continually binging, buzzing, alarms and alerts readily disrupt our thoughts, our productivity and definitely disrupts what is left of our private lives.

daily disruptions
The average worker gets 1 interruption every 8 minutes, 7 interruptions an hour or 50-60 per day. This can pile up to almost 50% of the average workday. Is it any wonder employees leave the office feeling like they have been super busy, yet not really sure what they have achieved?

I can vouch for this in my previous job working in corporate health. We had an ‘open office policy’ which really resulted in a more apt ‘non-productive office policy’ because workers were continually interrupting each other throughout the day. Reports that should have taken me 30 minutes to write ended up taking half the day with a constant string of interruptions including impromptu meetings, phone calls, people dropping in for a ‘quick question’ and the list goes on and on and on... (now don’t get me wrong – it is essential to be available for phone calls, meetings and impromptu chats – but in set times. It is impossible to be both productive and in control if you have a sign above your work station saying ‘open all hours 24/7’)

The latest research at an information technology office in California showed that once workers were interrupted, it took a staggering 25 minutes on average to return to the original task. Yet we still hold the mantra that multitasking is good for productivity!


epidemic of attention-deficit traits
Dr Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist in Massachusetts has been witnessing the fallout of multitasking mania: it walks through his doors five days a week. Over the past decade Hallowell has seen a tenfold rise in the number of patients showing symptoms closely related to those of attention-deficit disorder. In a Harvard Business Review article last year, Hallowell coined the term Attention-Deficit Trait, or ADT. ADT takes hold when we get so overloaded with incoming messages and unfinished tasks that we are unable to get clarity or prioritise.

a multitasker’s glossary
Just as the arrival of automobiles ultimately brought us words like rubbernecking, gridlock and road rage, the information age demands new terms for the behaviour it induces. Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell talks about the following new terms:


screen sucking
Wasting time online long after you have finished what you signed on to do. (Example: Still trawling google after you actually found the information you were looking for more than 30 minutes ago).
frazzing
Frantic, ineffective multitasking, typically with the delusion that you are getting a lot done. The quality of the work however is poor. (Example: 3 minute phone call turns into a 15 minute chat – back to writing business plan for 2 minutes – BING! Email alert – you have mail. Respond to email from HR department takes another 5 minutes – then back to business plan – but it takes you 6 or 7 minutes to get back into the thought process again – back writing the plan for 2 minutes and suddenly – BING – RING – DING.....Argggghhhh!)
pizzled
How you feel when someone you’re with pulls out a cell phone or Blackberry and uses it without an explanation or apology. A cross between pissed off and puzzled. (Just read above example over and over)
doomdart
The internal distraction of a forgotten task that pops into your mind when you are doing something else. A side effect of frazzing.

the case for doing one thing at a time
Now for some solutions. I don’t want you getting further and further into this article and feeling deeper and deeper out of control. There is a way out of multitasking mania. And the way out will require a totally different mind set for some people. It involves chunking, energy platforms, prioritising, clear communication and going to email school.

1. chunking
This is not a new term, but for many people it is a new skill. Chunking involves focussing on completing one task at a time, or working on similar tasks together. (Example: Writing all your proposals together, locking out 2 hours to complete a project report, or blocking all your inner city meetings back to back on a Wednesday afternoon. Put a non disturb sign on your office door or work station if you have to).
2. work to your energy platforms
If you are a morning person, block out uninterrupted time in the morning to do proposals, reports, thinking work and high end tasks. The worst thing you can do as a morning person is junk emails first thing you hit the office. And for the bears who blossom later in the day, the morning is probably the best time for you to do emails and lower end thinking tasks – then do the productive activities when your energy levels are high.
3. clear communication
It is essential to explain your new working rules to colleagues and management. Not being available 24/7 is not rude or exclusive – it’s smart! Better still, get your colleagues practising the same method and watch productivity thrive in your organisation.
4. prioritising
Once again this is nothing new. But when we become consumed by the medium it is often very difficult to focus on what needs to be done and what needs to be deleted. Spending 10 to 15 minutes at the start of the working day is a great way to get clarity on the most important tasks that should be completed today. Then control your time as much as possible and focus on your action list.
5. email school
Unfortunately for most workers this never existed! We didn’t learn how to use emails to be productive and efficient. Instead, we have been consumed by the medium and are chained to the Inbox. For a starter, implement the following:
• chunk checking times – only check emails 2 or 3 times throughout the day
• get rid of the ‘you have mail’ alert. This kills thought process and productivity.
• avoid email tennis – any more than 2 emails and you’re still unclear resort to the old fashioned mode of talking on the telephone, or better still – go back to meeting face to face keep email brief and to the point. It’s not a research thesis!
• Stop covering your butt. The cc and bcc is more often than not super unnecessary. Only send emails to relevant people and avoid the email butt covering trail.
• Delete. Get rid of the junk.
• Respond to what’s important. This challenges the values many people were bought up with where we were taught to respond to every phone call, letter etc that comes into your office. Surviving amidst ‘data smog’ requires you to focus on what’s important and leave the rest.

final comment
Some of the suggestions in this article may cause a bit of tension for some readers. That’s fine. This is designed to challenge you to work smarter not harder. To do this some people are going to have to reengineer the way they work. But I guarantee after a few teething problems, if you take on the majority of the recommendations you’ll be amazed at how much control you actually can have over the way you work and the way you spend your time. Gotta fly – have a number of things I have to go and multitask!

Andrew May

Main source: Staying Sharp, Time Magazine, January, 2006

iWords, geek-speak and automated acronyms

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Paradox of Choice

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney


The Paradox of Choice

The shelves of supermarkets and shops are bulging with new choices, new brands and new products. But does the smorgasbord of options make us happy or is it turning us into a society paralysed by indecision?

Drinking milk as a kid
Remember when you went to the shops as a kid to buy some milk? My very first memories of buying milk – there was only one type – full cream. Then the milkman started delivering milk with two different coloured caps – red for full cream and yellow for low fat, very fancy. Fast-track a few years and we then had the choice of Skim or Lite White at the local corner store. Even that seemed pretty chic at the time. Last week I took a notepad to the supermarket (yeah I know, I probably should get some more interesting hobbies) and counted all of the different varieties of milk available at the supermarket. 41 different types of milk!

Vanilla to 212 types of ice-cream
Not finished with my counting experiments in the dairy section, I moved onto the really good stuff – the ice-cream. Now I can clearly remember as a kid when mum first bought a tub of Neapolitan home. Wow! We couldn’t believe our luck, three ice-creams in one. I love strawberry, my sister loves vanilla, dad loves chocolate and my brother loves all three. We were in ice-cream heaven. Back in the supermarket, after a quick count in the ice-cream section there are an unbelievable 212 different flavours, blends and combinations. If you think choosing ice cream is hard, then try sifting through 114 different options of breakfast cereal. There were even 10 different varieties of apples, so many choices just to keep the doctor away!

Disconcerted by denim
I was recently in New York and decided to wander into Abercrombie and Fitch to buy myself a new pair of denim jeans. ‘Would you like stone-wash, acid-wash, dirty-denim, distressed-denim or classic-denim?’ the super-attractive assistant named Claire asked above the background noise of disco music. ‘What type of fit are you after - relaxed fit, slim fit, baggy fit or extra baggy fit?’ And were you after straight leg, square cut, boot cut, cuffed jeans or classic cut?’ I must have looked totally lost as I just stared at Claire to try and make sense of the date-deluge I had just been sprayed with. ‘Don’t forget you can also choose between button-fly or zipper fly!’ she piped up gregariously.

90 minutes later I must have tried on more than 20 different types of jeans and I couldn’t decide which one I wanted. I ended up walking out of the shop empty handed and thought about finding a nearby pharmacy to grab some headache tablets.

The Paradox of Choice
No wonder we are getting more and more confused. With so many alternatives how can we possibly know what to choose? Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice, talks about ‘choice overload’. Anyone who has sifted through hundreds of cable TV options, 29 different types of mobile phone plans, trying to decide on a health-care plan, or trying to buy a pair of jeans knows exactly what this means.

A bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume that more options will make us happier, but Schwartz argues the opposite is true, explaining that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.

Choice and happiness
Researchers all over the world have been trying to measure happiness for decades, with the most widely used format called the ‘Satisfaction with Life Scale’. What has become increasingly obvious from these studies is that once a society’s level of per capita wealth crosses a threshold from poverty to adequate subsistence (about $20,000 AUS per person per year), further increases in national wealth has almost no effect on happiness. There are as many happy people in Poland as Japan – even though the average Japanese is 10 times richer than the average Pole! Being connected to others is much more important to subjective wellbeing than being rich or having abundance of choice.

Cutting down options makes it easier
Sheen Iyengar, a psychologist from Columbia University conducted a well known experiment a few years back. She set up a tasting booth of exotic gourmet jams near a fashionable grocery store in California. Some days 24 different types of jams were on display. Conventional wisdom tells us that the more choices available, the more people are likely to find something they like and therefore buy. Iyengar actually found the opposite to be true.
‘33% of those who stopped by the 6 choice booth ended up buying some jam, while only 3 percent of those who stopped by the 24 choice booth bought anything’.

Malcolm Gladwell points out ‘if you are given too many choices, if you are forced to consider much more than your unconscious is comfortable with, you get paralysed’.

Solutions for making it easier to choose
1. write a list of what you want and stick to it
2. set a timeline so you don’t get stuck shopping all day
3. ask family and friends for their shopping tips
4. buy items that compliment each other
5. remember the most expensive brands are not always the best

Reference sources
The Paradox of Choice, Why more is less. Barry Schwartz
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
Spoilt for Choice, David Dale, Sydney Morning Herald, July, 2005.

Mobile Mania

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

How to Get Going On Frosty Winter Mornings

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9

Energy Personalities

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Inboxication - Are You At Risk?

Andrew May on TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney



Remember the days when we actually posted a letter via ‘snail mail’? Those days are long gone and speed of communication is the new king. Sitting in the court of this new kingdom is email. It has revolutionised communication, making it simpler and faster for businesses to communicate.

email facts

• The average email user in business spends 2 hours plus a day dealing with email
  
• Worldwide email traffic will triple over the next few years with 331 billion emails predicted to be sent and received per day by 2009 (Radicatti)
  
• Average workers receive 48 to 75 emails per day, with many workers now receiving 200 to 300 (Christine Cavanagh, University of Western Ontario)
  
• 70% of senior managers found dealing with daily torrents of email stressful
  (Australian Psychological Society study survey)
  
• Costs $25, 000 annually on paying senior managers to read and write emails
  (research by Emphasis on UK’s Big Four financial firms)

we need a new set of rules
So clearly we need to find ways of cutting down on email traffic and managing it more efficiently. Read the following 7 Deadly Sins of email to help you control the date deluge and avoid feeling ‘inboxicated’.


sin 1: 24/7 email addiction
always connected and controlled by the medium
Bing! ... the noise alert ‘you have mail’ has to be the greatest killer of productivity and concentration. Get rid of the email alert and focus on one task at a time, especially when it requires thought and innovation. Check your emails at specific times throughout the day to enhance productivity and output. For example, only check emails at the start of your day, just before lunch and at the end of the day.

One in five people fall into the category of ‘email dependant’ and compulsively check email and panic when they can’t get access.

sin 2: email tennis
stuck in a serve volley game of constant returning emails
Ever had one of those asynchronous email conversations that goes on like a Lleyton Hewitt 5th set tie breaker? Get out of the habit of long games of email tennis. Follow the 2 email rule – if you’re still not sure what to do after 2 emails revert to a really old fashioned way of communicating and pick up the phone and call the recipient and work out what needs to be done. Better still, if they work in the cubicle next to you, get out of your chair and go and see them face to face.

sin 3: email emu
sticking your head in the sand trying to avoid confrontation
Don’t use email as a medium to shy away from face to face confrontation. Email is best suited to simple communications, such as scheduling meetings and circulating minutes or updates. It isn’t a substitute for face-to-face or phone communications.
U R Fired :( RadioShack sacked 400 employees in Fort Worth via staff email in 2006. A redundancy is never going to be good news, but receiving notification of it by email just adds insult to injury.

sin 4: writing a thesis
waffling on, and on and on and on and on in emails
Get to the point. Keep it brief. Remember some people already receive hundreds of emails a day. Email tends to be more like conversational speech and falls in a category between a short note and a memo, so it is unnecessary to spend hours composing a message with the formality and rigidity of a PHD thesis (although I can hear my high school English teacher screaming in disgust as I type this!)

• Better still, use bullet points to illustrate main topics
  

sin 5: bcc (butt covering child)
CC’ing everyone to show how busy you’ve been
Needlessly long distribution lists are a major cause of email log jam. It may seem convenient for circulating a document to glean input from multiple people, but it can spark off an email frenzy that you will find hard to cope with. There’s nothing like ‘email noise’ to raise your stress levels. Ten messages from ten recipients in ten minutes, with ten conflicting views. Aaaaaaahhhhh!

sin 6: quick draw McGraw
not thinking before you send
Because email is quick and viewed as a less formal medium than letters or memos, people can be careless in their eagerness to reply. We’ve all seen this deadly sin in action. When a friend or colleague writes something about someone or something and accidentally copies in the entire distribution list. At the very least this will provide embarrassment; and at the worst jeopardise your career. As a simple rule, if you are going to send an emotional or ‘angry email’, write it, store it in your draft folder, read it again a few hours later and then re evaluate how you feel. Email may be convenient, but it’s also easy to misinterpret, lacking the visual clues or changes in tonality of face-to-face communication.

sin 7: junk emails
spam, chain emails, and general junk
That email you received from the Nigerian farmer about needing help to bring money out of the country probably doesn’t have much truth to it; and what about the endless parade of emails that ‘promise to bring you luck and abundance after you forward to 50 family members and friends’; and we’ve all had a friend who suddenly got connected and started sending endless jokes, stories and pictures of all sorts. Get rid of the spam and junk. Use filters. And regularly use Mail Box Clean up, with this tool, you can find types of items to delete or move, empty the deleted items folder or you can have Outlook transfer items to an archive file. Be ruthless and only keep emails you really need.

final comment
There’s no doubt that email can be a scourge on productivity and an added source of stress. Used inappropriately, it can even cause embarrassment and elicit unintended responses. But follow a few simple rules and apply a bit of self-discipline, and email can live up to its promise of being a fast and efficient communications tool. That’s it for now – gotta go – more emails to send!!

Andrew May

Reference sources: Uni SA Technology Services; Steven Robbins, Leadership Robert Ashton, Accountancy Age, September 2005 Decisionworks; Julia Baird, How Elvis got Back in the Building, 2004

Surviving the First Day at Work

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney


Starting a new job is a lot like your first day at school – there are fresh faces, unfamiliar places and plenty of new things to learn. You also need to learn who’s who in the zoo - where the toilets are, what time the ‘tuck shop’ opens and what is the principal really like?

Your first day in any new role will be a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand you will feel nervous, self-aware and out of your comfort zone. On the other hand there are new and exciting opportunities, new skills and new challenges ahead of you. Understanding and following some basic workplace rules will help you sail through your first day. Before discussing what to do; let’s have a quick look at what not to do.


blundering plumber burns down £5M mansion
The first day can be a nerve racking experience prone to professional mishaps. Where even the most experienced worker can expect to feel a bit of heat. But if you’ve ever had a bad first day – think about the poor 17 year old rookie plumber who burnt down a £5 million ($12 million) waterside mansion in southwest England.

Taking it on himself to do some soldering in the roof of a historic mansion in Devon that was undergoing a major renovation – the plumber started the fire after polystyrene insulation caught alight from the flame of a blow torch.

The message? Stay away from the blowtorch on day one.


5 things to avoid on your first day
While there are definite things you should do, there is also a list of things you should avoid:

1. don’t go too hard too soon - Remember the school 400m race? Every year there was some kid who stayed up all night watching videos of Michael Johnson winning the Olympic 400m race. The next day the gun fires, the first 200m is flat out, at the 250m mark the legs feel a little heavy, then the last 100m you get totally swamped and everyone flies past. Pace yourself at work and ease into the new environment.
2. don’t get into office politics – avoid the water cooler discussion bitching about the boss, or the HR manager, or about the new girl in accounts
3. don’t eat garlic, onions or a spicy curry the night before – I’ll let you work this one out for yourself
4. don’t tell colleagues everything that’s wrong – while a set of fresh eyes can be invaluable for creative input and adding new ideas. Be careful of entering a new workplace and pointing out everything that’s wrong
5. don’t bring your medals on the first day – I remember my father took in my state running medals to show Mr MacQueen, my new Sports Master after we had moved from Glen Innes to Yass when I was in Year 7 (dad to his credit was so proud of his kids). While Mr MacQueen was impressed – 2 weeks later when the football captain said ‘where are your medals today, new-boy?’ in front of everyone at school assembly. I didn’t think bringing the medals in was such a good idea anymore...

5 things to do
There are 5 ‘must do’s’ that will help you get off to a great start and they all start with the letter P.

1. punctual – make sure you arrive early. Taking a new route to work in the car, on the bus, on your bike or walking can take more time than you first expected. Plan to arrive at least 30 minutes early to avoid any last minute traffic mishaps.
2. plan – think about what are you going to wear. If everyone else is wearing a suit and tie – wear a suit and tie. If the standard uniform is Hard Yakka work wear, a suit and tie might look a little out of place!
3. professional – be courteous and polite, err on the side of caution if you’re not sure about the grammar or syntax to use. Walking up to the CEO and giving him a ‘high 5’ might be funny to your new colleagues, but could be a CLM – career limiting move
4. procedures – every company has standard policies and procedures. Make sure you find out what they are. Learn the evacuation policy, first-aid guidelines, where stationary is kept, workplace health and safety, internet policy,
5. performance – at the end of the day you are employed to do a job and perform. Most companies will have a 12-week trial period followed by a formal performance review. Make sure you are crystal clear on how you will be measured. Is it sales volume, customer satisfaction, staff morale/communication or materials produced?

don’t be too hard on yourself
Remember you are new and it is perfectly normal to take up to 3 months to settle into a new role and ‘learn the ropes’. Don’t be too hard on yourself – we all make mistakes and this is part of the learning process. And please ask lots of questions and keep a note book – you are much better to ask what might seem like a silly question than make a $12 million mistake!


enjoy the challenge
Starting a new job can be fun, challenging and rewarding. Acknowledge that you will have mixed emotions along the way and focus more of your time and energy on the new and exciting aspects rather than on the things you don’t know or can’t control. Follow the 5 to-do tips and enjoy your exciting new career.

Andrew May

Road Runner Syndrome

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney


Ever had that overwhelming feeling that no matter how much faster you go, you’re still falling further and further behind?

Meep meep – broooooo! Welcome to the world of Road Runner Syndrome.

This phenomenon was first discovered back in 1959 by Friedman and Rosenman, two cardiologists researching personality types who defined the very well-publicised 'Type A’ personality. They coined it ‘hurry sickness’, I call it ‘Road Runner Syndrome’. With the rapid increase in speed in modern society, more and more people have a ‘harrying sense of time urgency.’


road runner reality
The reality of modern society is that most people have varying degrees of Road Runner Syndrome. I do, and I spend a large part of my life teaching other people about it. What we need to do is learn to live with it, and more importantly control it so speed doesn’t take over. By all means when you have to go hard, work fast – and get as much done as you can. You just need to remember to also take time out. If you get totally addicted to a high-speed pace and avoid spending time going slow, you’re a prime candidate for burnout.

what can we do about it?
One thing I learnt working with elite sporting teams, is that the worlds best athletes don’t just focus on performance – in many respects they put as much time and effort into recovering as well.

Hard core Road Runners need to re-learn how to go SLOW. This will feel counterintuitive for many people who have been taught that to get more done you have to work more or work faster. In many instances, I see people and companies dramatically improve their output by building in periods of rest and recovery.

5 tips to keep road runner at bay
1. have an annual off season – take a proper 2 or 3 week holiday once a year
2. try and squeeze in a mini-break every 12 weeks
3. use the OFF button – learn to press OFF on your mobile, computer, PDA and other electronic devices
4. avoid Noddy Syndrome and learn to say NO – try and delete some of the things you are currently involved in
5. go SLOW – build in some ‘me time’ where you focus on recovering, recharging and renewing yourself

They key is to be ON when you have to; and OFF when you can... Good luck!

Andrew May