As we come under greater pressure to achieve more with less, our workloads increase and our to-do lists get longer. Under such circumstances, it’s common for us to put everything else to one side, so that we can focus on the more urgent tasks. It’s a temporary situation, we tell ourselves. Things will calm down soon and we’ll get everything back on track. But we’re wrong.
If the years since the start of the pandemic have taught us anything, it’s that when workloads and workplace expectations go up, they don’t come down again. Things don’t go back to normal. They just replace the old normal with a new one.
When we put aside our ‘important but not urgent’ tasks in favour of more pressing matters, there’s little point kidding ourselves that this is a short-term sprint and that circumstances will soon revert back to how they were. Because that’s (probably) not going to happen. In fact, things are likely to get worse.
This is not a temporary situation. This is it.
And the sooner we accept this, the sooner we can start to figure out what to do about it.
Simon Perks is the founder and director of Sockmonkey Consulting. He helps organisations with a social purpose to make better decisions, to improve their performance and to drive positive change. Sign up for his free monthly newsletter here.