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SACRIFICE THE SACRED COWS

Written by: Jonathan Payne

Article Overview: The assumption that we have to do things because that is the way they have always been done needs to be challenged if we desire to live life effectively.

SACRIFICE THE SACRED COWS

Technology has delivered us a bag of mixed blessings- things we cannot live without, but which can be an inconvenience.
Take cell phones and e-mail for instance. For millennia, humankind has existed without cell phones. Yet today a person without one is virtually dysfunctional. And while it is great to be able to contact someone from almost anywhere, there is the inconvenience of being able to be contacted almost anywhere. In the days before cell phones it was standard to remain focused on a meeting or conversation or whatever activity was happening at the time. Now participation in an event continues for only as long as the “tyranny of the ringtone” permits. Are we creating “emergencies” and “crisis situations” which demand our attention simply because we are available? I suspect that many calls, which cause the “callee” to dash from the room with barely an apology, are about situations that could wait, or could be dealt with by someone else.
The same goes for e-mails. They swamp our inbox and demand that we read each one of them and reply to most of them. The more I coach people the more I am aware of how many people suffer from “inbox anxiety”. I am certain that if sending an e-mail required greater effort, most e-mails would never be sent. We send them because we can.
Phone calls and e-mails are our new sacred cows. Let’s be brave – let’s sacrifice them. When you are engaged in a meeting or conversation – and especially when driving – kill the phone. Guess what – you will find most calls can wait.
That inbox – unless you were expecting an e-mail or it clearly is urgent (and remember, just because the sender has flagged it as urgent only means that it is urgent in their opinion), then park it in another folder and come back to it when you have time. And even better, instead of reading the e-mail, ask the question: “Why should I not delete this?” If you can’t find a good reason not to delete it – you know what to do. In most cases, no one will notice that you obliterated the message that “just had to be read.”
It takes some humility to realise that we don’t have to personally attend to everything that comes our way, and that things will continue without our intervention. But it also frees up a huge amount of time and energy to dedicate to those things that really matter.

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Article Tags: anxiety, apology, cell phones, coach, crisis situations, e mail, emergencies, good reason, humankind, inbox, inconvenience, millennia, mixed blessings, participation, sacred cows, tyranny



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