Sometimes I feel like a firefighter!

It doesn’t matter what time a day or what season we are in, it seems like there are always a multitude of fires to put out. Whether it’s the daily mundane of the dog barking because it’s time to eat or something much more complicated, there are 100s of things we are thinking about daily. 

In David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”, he explains that at any given time there are about 200 things we are thinking about and it’s impossible to keep them all bottled up inside your head. He recommends getting all of them out on paper and then sorting them by how long they take to get done and from there develops a system for handling them by focusing on the next action needed to solve that problem or accomplish that goal.

Building A System to Fix Problems

I incorporate a lot of what “Getting Things Done” advocates for in my daily routine, but my personality type lends itself to trying to fix everything. Not only is it in my nature, but it’s a big part of my day job and so I often find myself simply looking for the next problem to solve. The trouble with that is, if you look for a problem, you can often find one, whether it is something you should be solving or not.

Therefore I started to use the simple grade school trick of “who, what, when, where, why, how” to try and identify if the problem is something I actually need to solve or not. Not to start out of order but I’m going to simplify things by dropping “How the problem occurred.” The fact of the matter is I don’t really care. Once it’s a problem, it doesn’t matter how it happened. It does matter why it happened and I’ll get to that later.

What is the Problem?

This is the simplest part and it is simply to identify what the problem actually is. Once we know what the problem is, and be specific, then we can start to dig into ways to eliminate it.

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Whose Problem Is It?

Now that we have the problem identified, I need to ask myself whose problem is it. A good chunk of the time the answer to that problem is not mine. For a fixer like myself, this is tremendously hard to let go of. I want to help, but sometimes the person with the problem doesn’t want or doesn’t need help. 

Let’s take the family example. If my wife is having a problem, should I just say “It’s not my problem?” Of course not, that wouldn’t go to well. That being said, there are plenty of days when all that is needed is someone to listen, especially if it is something that pertains to her career. Ultimately she will be the one to solve the problem and I just need to take that supporting role.

Kids are another example. Kids run into problems all the time and as parents we want to step in to protect or save the day, but there are times when it is beneficial to let things play out so that they can learn how to deal with a certain situation. Other times we need to step in and intervene.

The same thing is true at work. You might want to help a co-worker who needs help on a project they are working on or is struggling with how something is going at work. It is great to be a supportive co-worker but there comes a point when they need to figure things out on their own. Helping them just enables it to continue and suddenly you are doing 50% of someone else’s job in addition to your own.

When is the Problem Happening?

Another thing I struggle with is staying in the present and a lot of times I’m thinking way ahead of the current situation and fixing on problems that will not manifest until well into the future, or may not even be problems at all, we are just anticipating that they might.

As someone with health anxiety from time to time, I may begin to fixate on the possibility that I may get cancer later in life. I don’t currently have cancer, and I haven’t in the past, nor do I have a particularly deep family history of it. Yet I start to anticipate that this could be a problem for me thus creating a problem that isn’t there yet. Stack this on top of the pile of problems I do have currently and it just adds to the stress.

We have to make sure the problem that we are working on is the first one that needs to be solved.

Where is the problem?

My wife always says, “what is the closest alligator to your boat” and I love that because it illustrates perfectly what we are dealing with. Picture yourself in a huge swampy lake full of alligators. I shouldn’t be worried about the one sunning itself on the shore when there is one trying to crawl into my boat. Thats the problem I need to deal with first.

The other reason we need to ask ourselves where the problem is, is because we are often not the one in the best position to solve it. You might be trying to support someone who lives across the country or the world  and while we can certainly support long distance, it’s much harder to solve that problem. So when we are looking at a situation where we feel overwhelmed by problems we need to simplify and focus on the ones closest to us.

In today’s world this can be extremely hard. People are passionate about geopolitical issues, we want to fight for what we believe in, but sometimes we take on all the causes and try to solve all the problems and then we aren’t very helpful to anyone. Pick the cause that you are most likely to be able to influence more and go with that one.

Why is the Problem Happening?

Remember we didn’t care how it happened, but we do want to know WHY the problem happened. If we can identify the root cause, this may be able to help us from experiencing the problem on repeat. You may argue that this is semantics in the Why vs. How  and you are correct. I just wanted all the sections to start with “W”. 

What is the Next Action That Needs to be Taken to Fix the Problem?

This is where we bring David Allen back into the mix. Once we figure out what the problem is,  it’s affecting me in the present and it is close enough for me to be an effective problem solver, I need to figure out what is the next action I need to take to solve that issue. 

The biggest problem I find myself doing procrastinating. The next action usually is some form of having a tough conversation about something. I will instead put it on the back burner and think about the next problem I need to deal with. This leads to nothing but more unsolved problems that I will need to reconcile with at some point.

Suck it up and do the hard thing. Have the conversation, whether it is with someone else or with yourself and start the process of getting to the root of the problem. You will feel much better when you do, even if it takes a good bit of courage to get started.

Let Go of the Rest and Put Down the Emotional Baggage.

Maybe the most important advice when dealing with problems that aren’t yours is to let that emotional cost go. Because it is taking away from other things in your life. There is so much stress we put on ourselves related to just keeping all the balls in the air.  It leads to burnout, chronic stress and fatigue, and other mental issues like anxiety and depression. You have enough of your own problems to worry about to be carrying everyone else’s around. 

Now go breathe, unplug, and when you come back, you can start hunting that closest alligator.

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