We must stop saying ‘must’

In this (more or less completely opinionated) post I’m going to put forward a few suggestions I have for those who feel they are doing one thousand things a day, have no time, get nothing truly done, and don’t feel like they get much to any satisfaction from that. Sound like you or someone you know?

I have to send this work email…

We live in a society where we have so much to choose from on what we do with our time. We are constantly connected to anybody we want to be with smartphones, the internet, Fa**book, messengers, all pinging us notifications, offering us scrolling for more content, sending us emails direct to our pockets and generally making it possible to do most of the things we want to more or less instantly.

Sounds brilliant right? Now I can send off that important work email as soon as I get it, rather than lose sleep over it during the night in case I forget. If there’s a prod issue in my software application, I can just boot up my laptop, do the hot fix, push it up and it’s resolved before I’ve made my morning coffee.

But with this extra connection, and these extra choices, comes a lot more responsibility on each person as an individual to be more picky about what they spend their time doing. This concept is researched a lot in the world of psychology and a well coined phrase for it is Essentialism. In this post I’m not going to go massively in depth as to the ins and outs of it (it’s done a lot better elsewhere) but I’m going to put my spin on asking the right questions, phrasing your decisions in your mind to feel a bit happier about them, and importantly, what can happen if you don’t.

Everything is a choice, and the choice is always there

How often have you thought or heard “I don’t have a choice, I’m going to have to do this”? Usually it’s uttered when someone doesn’t want to go through with an option, but feels they have no action they can take to avoid going through with that option.

In most cases this is very rarely true. And the illusion comes about from not identifying the subtle but important difference between our options (what we can) do, and our actions (what we choose to do). Identifying when you are getting mixed up in options rather than actions is a great first step towards relieving yourself of some of the clutter that is stopping you being as good at being you as you would like to be.

Every time you do anything you have made a choice. Every time you do nothing you have also made a choice.

A really important thing to bear in mind and consider is that if you don’t make your choices, and if you hide from the options in front of you, or if you “try and do it all” (which I plan on covering at a later date in more detail) then you are essentially surrendering your choice to be made by someone or something else. This surrendering of choices leaves you with a lot less options, and it feels like, “no choice” but to do what somebody has already decided.

If you worry you are indeed in that position, and that some “other” has been making your choices, and limiting your options, fear not. William James coined the phrase

“My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.”

It is never too late to choose to take your options back. At no point will you have lost the right to decide your own actions. Your options may be limited to begin with, but it is always feasible to regain “control” over your actions (I use quotations because it was never truly lost to you!)

Boiling down to the why

A great exercise I regularly use myself, and encourage you to try, is to ask yourself Why?:

• Why am I doing this?
• Why am I doing this?
• Why am I doing this?

The inflection is important and it helps you to boil down to a few different key questions about seeing whether the action you are about to choose to take is a correct, essential one for yourself, or if it’s something you are doing that is non-essential, inefficient or otherwise not useful.

“Why” am I doing this?

What is it you are wanting to get from the action you are about to take. Will this choice get you what you want, or get you closer to it? If you want to be a brilliant software developer, will accepting a position as a line manager make you better at developing software? Probably not. If, however, you want to progress in the company and get a management position, it might be! Do you want to be a brilliant software developer and in a management position? Well that’s trying to have it all, so what else are you willing to compromise to work on both?

Why am “I” doing this?

Is this really something that you should be taking on? Is it part of your role, or should this responsibility be pushed back and given to someone more suitable? This question is usually a good one to ask if you feel you struggle to delegate, don’t ask for help or find it hard to turn down any responsibility that rears its head. It obviously assumes you know in depth what you do and where your responsibility does lie, so bear this in mind.

Why am I doing “this”?

Is this the best choice for the outcome you want to achieve? Is there something else, easier, quicker, more useful, more effective, that you could do instead? Often the best solution isn’t the first, or most obvious one.

Taking back control

If you’ve got this far and are thinking “this is definitely me, but I have no idea how to start taking back control of my actions, I have a lot of people relying on me”, then you aren’t alone. Unfortunately choosing to prioritise yourself and your choices, and stripping back to what you consider essential does mean saying “Sorry, no” a lot more than you probably have done previously. Almost all anecdotes that are related to deciding to say no more often can usually be summed up with “at first my boss was disappointed, and made that clear. But after they noticed how much more productive I became at what I was actually being paid to do, they came to respect me saying no a lot more”.

I can’t really give any more advice than to “be brave”. If you truly believe the task being asked of you isn’t essential, then choosing not to do it is a legitimate action to take.

Start saying I choose to

It’s difficult to face up to the fact that it is our actions (what we choose) that can get us into a position we don’t really want to be in. It can be difficult to front up to the why you are choosing to open your work email and send those messages at 7:30pm while it’s bath time for your kids. It is always a lot easier to say “I have got to…” over “I have decided to…” because if you have to do something, then you don’t need a why to justify your choice, because you “didn’t have a choice”.

A similar argument applies to “I don’t have time to…”. If you don’t have time to go to the gym, then who can blame you for not going? If you’re late because you never have time to get ready, then it’s not your fault you’re so busy…right?

Every time you find yourself saying “I need to…” or “I must…” or “I have to…” try and catch yourself and instead say “I choose to…” and see if you immediately ask yourself why. I would wager you end up deciding some of those “essential” tasks are actually not something that needs doing right now, by you, in that way. Then whenever you find yourself saying “I don’t have time to…” replace it with “It’s not a priority for me to…”, and see if you decide that you want to make it a priority to fit it in.

I hope that it gives you a bit more freedom to rule your own life.