The view from above

The Stoics have been using the “view from above” exercise to force their mind to observe a situation from such a distance to make it feel insignificant.

The usual metaphor is to imagine ourselves experiencing the planet earth from the eyes of an astronaut. This way “earthly” problems looks pretty small.

Today, there was tons of micromanagement at work. I hate micromanagement. I always hook on a task and can’t get my head out of it, losing a lot of time.

Here’s something you can try. Next time you are hooked on a thought, task, work or problem, you think of the bigger goal you need to accomplish and reverse analyze it to smaller tasks. The more you decompose, the clearer the solution will become. If, during the process you hook on a smaller task, throw away everything and start over.

For managers: combine the above technique with delegation. It’s a winner strategy.