#104 Brain has 'Too Many Tabs Open'
Close all tabs, hit refresh and start from the beginning again to get your mood and life in order. Know how?
I read this phrase on my neighbour’s hoodie, and I kinda liked to have it as my blog’s title someday. Well, that someday took some seven months to get materialised into a reality; the reason is the title itself. I had too many tabs open in the last few months, which has put me out of order. Last evening, when I returned home from the office, I was irritated at the fact that nothing was working out for me. These were some key thoughts running in circles in my head, not making me sit in peace or in that present moment.
Tuesday’s meeting deck is not yet prepared
Next week’s important meeting also has to be figured out
What to cook for dinner?
Planning for a colleague’s wedding ahead
Not halfway through the day’s task list and a few more
All these thoughts were running, and alongside was running on what to do next and the next and what can be my parallel tasks and so on. My friend sitting right opposite me tapped my hand and asked why are you so off? Without even giving his question a thought, I responded No, I am not irritated but just thinking about a few things, how to figure them out. He felt as if I was not keen on sharing my feelings with him and lying to him, all this while, I was so consumed in those circles that I did not even realize that my face was just expressionless with a disgusted look. Well, I definitely sorted things out, but this line kept hitting me since last night, and so here I am to talk about it via today’s blog.
What exactly do I mean when I say too many tabs open?
Imagine you sat down to do some research on a topic and to set the mood, you play some music in the background on Spotify. Then someone enters your space to ask you for a parcel update, and the other one initiates a conversation on music genre with you, and you start indulging in such requests. Later on, when you get back to researching, you fall into a loop of related topics, which you continue reading and so on. What do you think will happen? You will be lost in the entire loop and it would be hard to figure out where you started and how far you have reached/ whether you are in the right direction or you are directionless. To sort out, you will shut down the music (thinking that’s the noise disengaging you) and restart your research with peace.
As humans, we love to multitask; we believe that it’s our forte, and we can effortlessly ace all the games at once. The hard reality is that we are not great multitaskers, and whenever we try, we get ourselves into more messy situations than ever. Does that mean we can’t ever multi-task and I am making this statement despite being an MBA grad myself (an MBA is all about juggling multiple things at once and still coming out as a winner, most of the time)? Of course, we all multi-task (including myself), but the outcome depends on the tasks we are trying to balance. More often than not, MBA tasks were uni-directional with no responsibility/ accountability or ownership attached to them, while in this real world, that’s not the case. There are repercussions attached to each task, which makes us more stressed or anxious whenever we try to juggle.
For those of you thinking you do it pretty well in the Corporate jungle - Let me save some of your time and remind you that the jungle might have surely taught you to be better at it with time. But trust me, that's like a dangerous position to be in. Yesterday was no less for me to think that I could give inputs on a new model while driving three parallel program launches and see everything in action at the same time. I underestimated my mental capacity and time, and by 6 PM, I was so numb that I couldn’t process anything anymore. And that’s what I call the ‘Tabs Open Loop’
“The More You Try to Do, the Less You Actually Accomplish”How does that affect you?
So, as I said, that’s a dangerous position to be in purely because it drains your mental energy at a faster pace and makes you less efficient at every additional task you pick. I must confess that this loop is so addictive that anyone will have a hard time coming out of the slump. I would admit that when I started managing a team and my stakeholders, I thoroughly enjoyed that I could deliver as per the expectations and within the timelines. I was so happy that I was prioritising right and balancing my life at the same time. Gradually, with the task list getting expanded and the pressure to maintain the initial impression, at first, my prioritisation went for a toss and then my ability to deliver, which also took away my balance in life.
My biggest learning from that experience was to-dos and prioritisation only work when you don’t beat the shit out of them. A page-long to-do for the day can’t be the right approach and if there is, then you have to eat that frog every hour of the day. All the gyaan given in self-help books goes out of the window when you find yourself in such situations.
So, How did I find my way back?
Through the same self-help books which I had thrown out of the window! I got them back and also my focused mind to figure out a better way to sort my mind, work and life. But the most important thing is to acknowledge that you have fallen into the ‘Tabs Open Loop’, and once you put your head to it, you will be able to break free. Nir Eyal in Indistractable and Leo Babauta in Zen Habits talk about such loops at length in their writings. But the fastest way to find the home is by jotting things down on a paper and then placing the same in four sections:
You have To-Do, You have to Get Done, You Can Do, You Can’t do/ get done.
Immediately, you will see a few tasks get off your list just because you can’t control them enough or the impact is limited for you. For the rest, you have it clear whether you or someone else will be doing it with you.
Next, you can block your focus time to attentively close on your tasks, preferably at your peak energy slots and block the review time when you are not so pumped up in your mind. Lastly, keep the related stress, anxiety out of the purview, and just remind yourself that you can still do it despite all the odds. (Dear MBA Grads, we have never missed any of our assignments/ submissions or projects irrespective of our sleep time, last night's party mood or anything; we still find a way to do it better than others)
“When You Work, Work Hard. When You’re Done, Be Done”