Daniel's Blog
Mental Bandwidth
2 min read | Last Updated: July 27, 2020
One of my managers and I used to talk about mental bandwidth - How much was available and when we were running out of it.
In general, I need to:
- Be aware of my limits.
- Understand my mood and capacity today (compared to “average”).
- Understand how much a specific action would cost and what are the risks associated with doing it (or not doing it).
I know this is not an exact science, but it’s to get an awareness of how I am doing. Let’s assume that the current situation has reduced the average bandwidth by quite a bit.
Overusing is fine, sometimes we need that crunch time, or something comes up that you can’t de-prioritise. Be mindful with that, as the risks of accumulated over usage are poor mental health (burnout, anxiety, …) and poor performance. Mental health is really, really, really important. Why? First, it’s just a job, it’s not worth it honestly. Second of all, it is in the company’s best interest that I don’t crash and burn, as replacing me (or anyone) is slow and expensive.
Prioritise ruthlessly
OK, so my goal is to not burn out (good) but also get stuff done. How do I do that? I prioritise and “plan” in advance. Maybe I spread out “risky” meetings if I can, or if I have a lot of meetings, I might postpone or move some that are a lower priority (note: don’t do that with your report 1:1s often, it signals they are not worthy of your time). It also helps if you have a culture of trust - I have asked to postpone some meetings cause it was getting a bit too much, and the other way around, no problem. Trust!
I can’t fix everything
It’s good to save up some bandwidth for emergencies. Stuff will come up, and I need to make a choice if I use my spare capacity, overuse or do nothing. I can’t fix everything, and if I try to, then I may overreach.
At the end of the day, I do what I think is right.
🌱 Emotional Intelligence theme, read more about it here!
Written by Daniel Lopez Rovira who likes talking about engineering stuff.