Last newsletter on my recent move. I promise. Lol.
For some reason, this move seemed more overwhelming than other moves. Which is funny because I have a fair amount in my time. And some big moves. To Ireland in 1998. And back to Canada in 2008. While this move was positive for a lot of reasons, it seemed a bit hairy. Maybe my memory of overwhelm of others has faded.
I think it is because I took advantage of the opportunity of moving and did a Marie Kondo style purging of my stuff.
I expanded the scope.
It happens on a lot of our projects. And yes, that can add overwhelm to what we do.
The other thing is the amount of change. And the quickness of the change. Even with preparation ahead of time, the actual move is a one-day change. Similarly to a product launch or migration.
I think overwhelm happens when we hit a saturation of newness and change. The simplest things seem complicated because we’ve reached our enough. Enough new.
For me this is the truth behind what people consider as tech overwhelm. The tech itself is often not complicated but rolling it out and the amount of scope we stuff into the change project makes it overwhelming. A change in tech can change how we work and how we interact with others.
This thought came to me when I encountered my own newness saturation level the first night in the new place.
I was physically exhausted by dinner time. Days of sorting, cleaning, shifting and packing things had worn me out. Preparing for this, I bought a couple of PC blue menu frozen dinners so I wouldn’t have to think about cooking the first few days. I peeled back the corners on a chicken tikka masala and put it in the microwave. Then looked at the buttons. And was lost.
It was a new and different microwave. I typed in the time to cook and then looked for the start button. And there wasn’t one! I fiddled and pressed a few buttons but couldn’t seem to get anything to work beyond the quick 30 seconds.
Overwhelmed, and not really all that hungry… I put the frozen dinner back into the freezer and had a bowl of cereal instead.
And that start button? I figured it out the next day after a good night’s sleep. And after using the dishwasher which was the same brand. Neither appliance had a button with the word start. There were The dishwasher had fewer buttons, so what was meant as start was more obvious. A pictorial button that was similar to a play button. You know the kind – an arrowhead inside a box. Pressing play turned both appliances on.
Hmmm. Sorta fitting. I’ve often found the remedy of dealing with tech overwhelm is to learn by playing with it. lol.
Do you have some funny tech overwhelm stories? What are some of the ways that you get past a saturation of newness and change?
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