Manage your WIP, manage your sanity

About a year ago, I documented my move from the UK to The Netherlands in relation to how my use of agile helped me cope.

I reflected on 5 things that I learned.

Since then, a year has passed and I’m afraid to say that some, not all, but some of the learning has made way for the reemergence of some bad habits.

This has caused me to struggle at times with periods of burnout and mental fatigue.

However two weeks ago, by chance, someone on LinkedIn ‘liked’ my original post which prompted me to revisit and re-read it.

Isn’t it funny how that sometimes, your own advice is the best advice for you?

At the time of reading, I was struggling with my ‘list of things to do’. I had presentations promised, sessions to plan, proposals to write, actions I’d picked up and tough conversations to get my head into. It was quite overwhelming. Coupled with the reemergence of homeschooling due to another COVID lockdown.

Now, I’m fully aligned with busy or burnout not being a badge of honour. Nothing impresses me less (barring job titles) than busy boasters.

However, as the walking contradiction that I can be, I’ve fallen into this trap a few times. It feels (and sounds) good for a while, channelling my Gary Vee hustle muscle. but it’s not sustainable, it sets the wrong expectation and creates a shortcut to ‘oh shit, I can’t cope and now need to stop’.

My fluctuating peaks and troughs can be exhausting. Not only for me, those around me too!

So anyway, I’d been brought back to my post and reading it made me reflect and consider my comment about managing WIP (work in progress).

Manage your WIP, manage your sanity — only pull in what you can do in the time you’ve got. Keep your WIP box small, doing columns are not helpful.

Hmmmm, maybe I should dig into this?

Here goes…

Managing our personal WIP is critical. In order to achieve anything to any kind of success, we need to have fewer plates spinning at any given time.

The research is there when we consider how managing too much at any given time requires some serious context switching.

Ultimately, the more we do — the less effective we are.

It’s kind of the opposite of how we’re educated or expected to ‘be’.

But so true.

So the secret to getting more done, feeling more effective and ultimately avoiding being that boiling pan that bubbles over is — to do less.

The way I’ve revisited and started to get into this habit is like this.

This was my before work board.

It’s not a real example, but you get the idea?

The problem is, I had too much WIP which meant that I wasn’t able to finish any one thing as I was making minuscule progress on lots of things. Also, because nothing went in to done, work coming in was backing up. The lack of completion on any area of focus was also a definite cause of anxiety.

This was a cause of my fatigue. Not essentially a root cause, that's probably at a much deeper level and an article for another day.

So, in the here and now, what can be done?

Well, I’ve been here before so when I’m up and running, I’m quite good at this.

Here’s how.

1. Add a new ‘incoming but now column’. Now I know that an additional column might be a recipe for more stuff but for me the naming ‘but not now’ gives me permission to add but not act. Like a psychological freezer for things to thaw out and cook later.
2. Say No Go (I can’t resist a De La Soul reference). I’d love to live in a Derek Sivers world of ‘Hell yes or no’ but in my line of work ‘no’ is often hard. There is a drive to be helpful and useful to both, peers and clients alike, business depends on it. But referring to my fluctuating peaks and troughs, it can be more damaging to keep saying yes rather than no. So learning to politely (but assertively) say no takes practice. It takes even more practice to not worry about saying no after it’s been said. When that practice becomes effective, the incoming and of course, to-do list automatically shrinks which enables me to feel less overwhelmed and focus on the WIP.
3. Lastly is the WIP. This is the point of success. What is the big thing, the medium thing, a small thing that I need to do today? This doesn’t include the stuff like emails, admin, Slack, or reactive work — that’s just the busy stuff we need to reduce(another post for another time). Working on these three things is where I find my sense of control. I can cope with this. I focus on the big thing first, then the medium, then the small, then the stuff (because of course, stuff has to be done).

Focusing on the big thing first is also a point of success. Some call this eating the frog from a quote by Mark Twain;

“If the first thing you do in the morning is to eat the frog, then you can continue your day with the satisfaction of knowing that this is probably the worst thing that will happen to you all day”.

This resonates with me as if I don't eat the frog, it lingers in my head causing procrastination. Procrastination causes anxiety…and we’re back in the doom loop.

So there it is. Manage your WIP, manage your sanity.

Of course, all of this is caveated with the practice of managing your WIP is a WIP. I stumble and fall regularly. The trick is to get back up and into it again.