No Emails.
Due to an accident, I am currently locked out of both my work email and calendar. So far it has been almost a week.
This means that a lot of meetings that I should have I wasn’t able to attend. I’ve not be able to move forwards with things work wise.
And you know what? The world hasn’t ended yet.
That’s okay — life sometimes happens and I’ll take the time to do other things. It is pointless to worry about what I’m potentially missing, if there is nothing that I can do about it.
Productivity and work reputation build up over years. Solid ones can withstand a few days of delay in answering emails or a few no-shows — especially when there is a good reason.
Collectively, the allure of always higher productivity can be dangerous. There is always going to be too much to do. If we live with the illusion that we can actually do everything on our plate then this can cause burn out.
It is important to accept the reality that some things will slip. They have to slip because you cannot do more than you actually can. This provides an opportunity for a switch in mindset. You start to be more selective of the tasks that you need to focus on va the ones that can wait or not done at all. Or, perhaps some else can do them instead of you at a higher quality. This last point is extremely important for managers as they are often swamped with work.
In fact, forced lack of access my work means that I have to lean on my team even more than usual. It’s a good test to see if the slack gets picked up — which I can see that it is.
This means I have an empowered team that can make independent decisions.
