Activating our effectiveness
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by Kim Deans
So many of us are living under a cloud of time pressure. This was confirmed to me recently when in over 50% of the feedback forms from a regenerative agriculture workshop I delivered, participants indicated that time was a barrier to implementing what they had learned that day.
Our effectiveness is built by focusing on factors within our control, whilst acknowledging there are also many factors contributing to our time pressure that are outside of our control (such as labour shortages). Shifting out of the cycle of time pressure to improve our effectiveness requires that we focus on factors within our control that address the root cause behind what has us feeling pressured. Otherwise, we keep busy doing more of the same things and expecting different results.
In the case of time pressure, improving our time management systems is useful up to a point. Time management can also be the straw that breaks the camel’s back when we focus solely on a getting more done approach of optimising, planning and streamlining. This approach can have us constantly scrambling to cram as much as we can into our overflowing schedules and keep ourselves so busy that we don’t get to the heart of the problem, our beliefs about time (there is that mindset piece again!)
Researchers who studied over 7,000 working Australians declared that time pressure is an illusion, “those who feel most overworked – those who have least “free” time – largely do it to themselves”. Their research suggests that the heart of time pressure may come from our beliefs, not the clock. (1)
Just as there is no one perfect time management system that will solve all our problems, there is also no one quick fix hack for the answer to addressing the root cause of our time pressure. Investing some time to curiously question into our relationship with time can direct us towards some root causes behind our personal time pressures and reveal ways for us to explore working smarter not harder.
14 Questions for activating our effectiveness:
What are my top three priorities? Resist the urge to create a long list of priorities, if you have more than three priorities do you have any?
Is what I am struggling to find the time for, truly a priority for me? If it’s not a priority, try swapping the phrase “I don’t have time” to “that’s not a priority right now”. The words we use to speak about time matter.
Am I using time as an excuse? Do we have to make an excuse, or can we just say no?
Is fear preventing me from taking action? Am I keeping myself busy to keep me safe from failing, to avoid a difficult situation or to keep me in my comfort zone?
Am I guided by a clear vision of the future I am working to create? Our vision clarifies our ideal future. We can use our vision to guide our decisions about how we use our time. If we don’t make time to clarify what we want, we can end up working on other people’s visions instead of our own. If we don’t know what we want, someone else will.
Are my values aligned with this course of action? When we are passionate about what we are doing, we don’t feel as pushed for time as we do when we are working on things we don’t care about.
Are my goals supporting this course of action or conflicting with it? Time pressure is reduced when our goals support each other, and don’t compete with each other. When our to do list is comprised of tasks competing for our attention, we feel overwhelmed.
Do I feel in control of my time? We experience more time pressure when we don’t feel in control of our time. This is where scheduling can support us, when we use a system that works for our individual thinking preferences, and we use it to support life, not to treat ourselves like a machine.
Am I comparing myself to others? Staying in our own lane happens through knowing what is most important to us. No one has more time than we do, we all have 24 hours in every day, we make choices about how we use our time.
Am I measuring my progress? A sneaky way a scarcity mindset works is by keeping us focused on everything we haven’t done yet, the never-ending job list stretching out before us that has us wondering where we will ever find the time to get it all done. A job list is useful to keep us on track, I ensure I balance this list with regular reviews to take note of what I have achieved, what has worked well, what I have learned and what I am grateful for.
Am I focusing on efficiency or effectiveness? Am I getting lots of things done, or am I getting the right things done? Am I maximising production or maximising profit?
What is enough? Enough is a decision, not an amount. When we decide what is enough for us, we can stop the endless pursuit of more to help release ourselves from time pressure.
Do I believe my worth comes from what I do? Somewhere along the line many of us learned to measure our value through our achievements and how much we get done. We have forgotten that our value is inherent and does not rely on us to prove ourselves through doing more and working harder.
Am I relating to myself as a machine or as a living system? How we relate to time is how we relate to ourselves.
When we allow ourselves to let go of the pressure and the struggle, we open the door for a new, more enjoyable way of working with land as well. We are part of the system, not separate from it. How can we claim we are achieving truly regenerative outcomes if we are running ourselves down in the process?
References
(1) Robert E Goodin, James Mahmud Rice, Michael Bittman & Peter Saunders. (2005) “The time-pressure illusion: Discretionary time vs Free time.” Social Indicators Research (2005) 73: 43–70 Ó Springer 2005 DOI 10.1007/s11205-004-4642-9 https://jamesmahmudrice.info/Time-Pressure.pdf
https://hbr.org/2021/06/my-fixation-on-time-management-almost-broke-me
https://www.mindful.org/what-to-do-when-you-feel-like-you-dont-have-enough-time/
Further Reading
https://www.reinventingagriculture.com.au/blog-2/make-friends-with-time
Further Listening