The other day I got myself in one what many of us may recognize as a familiar kind of tizzy: I was already busy when a couple of things went off plan, and before I knew it, my brain went all soft and fuzzy with the confusing new information and challenges. And pretty soon, as things piled up, it happened. The dreaded Brain Freeze. You’re so busy thinking about the things that you think you’re thinking about, that your brain seems to slip into a self-protective loop that prevents you from thinking ANYTHING with any clarity.
When this is happening to me, it usually turns out there are a just a few things that are causing it, and just a couple of simple actions that would fix it. I’ll put the causes in a bullet list further below, but first I have to share the irony of the fact that some of the first things that contributed to my derailment the other day were non-events, not events. What do I mean by “non-events”?
First, I had added some code to several websites (including this one) to make the sites “go dark” to protest SOPA, along with thousands of other sites around the web. Something didn’t work properly with the code, and the sites didn’t “go dark”, so at midnight I found myself tinkering and troubleshooting. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have realized that this wasn’t the end of the world. But I didn’t have my wits about me. I was tired, and spent an hour fixing the problem (remember, the problem here was that “nothing” was going to happen), so other things got neglected ’til the following morning, when I was tired from working late. So my day started out a little behind. Then there were a few random setbacks and changes of plans that day, and by noon, my little train was on an express run to derailment.
So what usually causes the stress that leads to the dreaded brain freeze?
- Poor planning and time management
- Unexpected events
- Inflexibility in approach
- Overwork and exhaustion
- Skipping meals
The first two on that list are kind of obvious. But the last two are probably the most often overlooked; who hasn’t skipped lunch to finish a project on time, or worked too hard and found themselves dragging through the day, probably under-performing? Yet many of us do these things ALL THE TIME. But it’s really number three I want to talk about, because that’s the one that can usually fix all the others. So below is the list of things that can FIX these problems.
- Acceptance
Yup. It’s just one thing. By “acceptance”, I don’t mean “abandonment of intentions”, I mean exactly what the word means. Accept things as they are. And then WORK WITH THEM. Almost universally, the merry-go-round of anxiety, anger, confusion, and poor decision making that follows some kind of disruption is caused by the simple fact that we fail to adjust. We stubbornly adhere to a plan that’s already running into problems, or we fail to make simple changes in attitude or behavior to adjust to external realities and get angry about the same predictable actions of other over and over. It’s almost like some part of us ENJOYS the misery.
So really, what are the solutions when things are headed for a crash and burn?
- Pause, breathe, and consider options
- Re-prioritize based on objective urgency, not ego
- Go have lunch or take some other kind of break
- Dig back in with a new attitude.
Where was I when I needed me the other day? Honestly, it all flows naturally from that first item. We’re usually sunk when we react with frustration to the first unexpected event, and the problem rapidly gains momentum. Think of Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert’s message to ground control upon learning that half of his spacecraft had just blown up, spewing debris into the cold blackness of space. He calmly said “Uh, Houston, we’ve had a problem“. And then dug in and got to work fixing it with calm and focus. So next time my day seems to be going off the rails, I’m going to try to think like an astronuat.
