The Voldemort Approach

If you are like me, every once in a while, you become overwhelmed. Nothing seems to work, you are not sure what task to take on next. Planning and forward thinking become cloudy. And on top of that, you feel like you need to keep a bold face on so as not to worry your team. Panic is often not far behind. 

Some years ago, I hit upon the perfect antidote to this. I call it the ‘Voldemort Approach’. 

Overwhelm is caused by our inability to parse all the issues, actions, and outcomes for which we feel responsible. And rather than dealing with the individual items, we have this great cloud of ‘stuff’ that in its entirety is daunting – i.e. overwhelming.   

As you undoubtedly know, Voldemort was Harry Potter’s nemesis. He was always referred to as “he who shall not be named” or  “you know who”. (Actually naming him was supposed to bring down the death eaters upon you.)  It was Dumbledore who sorted this out for Harry, “Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself”. 

And thus, on to the Voldemort Approach.   

It’s quite simple but very effective. Simply take a pen and paper (the tangibility of writing is important) and list all the things that are worrying you - professional and personal. That’s it.  

You’ll find that once you have listed them (and named them) they will be far less daunting. They will each have a name. They can each be filed, sorted, crossed out, delegated. In short you can deal with all of them. Overwhelm solved. 

Let me know how the Voldemort Approach works for you. 

Andrew