What's your number?

We all have that number where we start to get twitchy. That number that spurs us into action. Your are likely wondering where I am heading with this. Hell, you may have been wondering that since my first blog post. I promise, at some point this will become entertaining.

I promise. Hopefully.

I am someone who use to loose their ever loving mind if I had more than five unread emails, work or personal. I couldn't go to sleep without knowing I responded to every. single. email. I was/am an email fanatic. Making sure people felt connected and acknowledge was my number one priority. As I have advanced career wise, the emails are slightly more complex and immediate answers are not always possible. I acknowledge that I could do a stronger job at providing response time frames; maybe that will be a goal for next year. 2020 seems to require more attention than my children do.

Currently I have 46 unread work emails, 83 unread personal emails, 3 unread texts (a bunch of texts that need responding), 6 voicemails, 47 updates and several other notifications begging for attention. I also have, ya know, humans in my life that require attention. Some require more than others.

How do you prioritize your numbers? Are you someone who lives by the philosophy, if its that important they will circle back? Are you a, i'll get there when I get there? Perhaps you can simply say, eh, im gonna do me. Or the number might as well be a bomb and you must beat the clock? Is there a "right" way to handle the inundation of asks? Whose needs matter most? Yours? Both? At whose expense?

My undergrad degree is in mass communication and strategic integrated communication; with a side of pre med. My graduate degrees are in Healthcare Ethics and Healthcare Administration.I know, bizarre. In theory, I should be one hell of an effective communicator. In reality I use SAT words and lots of quasi-grammatically correct sentences and hope for deflection. I've been told I am a shit liar; perhaps that comes across in my writing too.

The imparting or exchanging of information or news; is the definition of communication. When I look at this basic definition I focus on the work exchange. A give and take. A true conversation. How many of us look at communication that way? So much communication is at us not with us. How many of us take the time to understand where the other person is coming from? Read between the lines. Even the strongest communicators have room for improvement. We all can improve on our ability to take pause, listen more and talk less. This goes for self communication as well.

How many of us stop listening to our own needs....

I sometimes wish people walked around with the same red bubble highlighting the number of internal messages that need addressing. Many of us probably wouldn't want to see what that number would be depicted as. Would that number rapidly increase every time you responded with "im fine" when you actually weren't? A modern day Pinocchio.

How many of us would take the time to help someone address their red bubble.

Does your red bubble make you twitchy?