The Purpose and Beauty of Transitions
We all know that we go through different phases in life and work. Some are full and the complexity lies in how one might possibly fit all the various pieces together. Other phases are spacious and the challenge is creating a rhythm, variation and a sense of progress.
Lately, I’ve been noticing what happens as we move between these different phases. There are the transitions we go through together, such as the political transition that is unfolding in the U.S. There are the larger seasonal changes of life, like taking on a new role, moving your home or re-envisioning your professional goals. And then there are the small transitions we experience every day—moving from zoom meeting to zoom meeting, to a call to email to a brainstorm session, then back into the domestic sphere.
In my work collaborating with organizations and individuals on how to design their time to support their ambitions, I’ve noticed that when it comes to these small transitions throughout the day—many people pretend they don’t exist.
We act as though change will be frictionless (for more on this checkout James Clear). We don’t allow enough time for transitions. Sometimes we skim right past them or don’t even realize we are in them. Study after study has demonstrated just how much changing focus effects us, often mentioned as switching costs—the price we pay in mental acuity, creativity and focus just by switching from one task to another.
The reality is these changes, or transitions are bumpy and a little disruptive, but they are also a necessity and serve a purpose.
In the real world, they need to be accounted for. When we don’t create space for a transition, there can be real costs, often found in the form of lower productivity, poor decision-making or missed opportunities.
Transitions are important to help us prepare.
A good transition enables us to let go of something and prepare to enter another arena.
Consider your commute (which may now be a thing of the past). That was time in which we could sort through and unpack our workdays, taking time to mentally and physically shift back to domestic life. We may not have enjoyed it at the time, but it gave us time to let go of the office and acclimatize to the home environment, where a different version of us needed to show up.
These days, our “commutes” might be a nanosecond pause in between one zoom before the next, or walking down the stairs to dinner prep or time with the kids.
Expecting to show up as the person you want to be when you are moving from one thing to the next without any pause is a bit like believing in instant transportation.
Do you know a person who walks out their door and arrives at their destination right away—as if by magic? That’s unlikely, yet chances are you do know someone who is always late, because something “unexpected” held them up.
That’s because, although convenient, instant transportation only works in Harry Potter, Back to the Future or Star Trek.
For most of us, transitions are real and not accounting for them doesn’t work well.
When we don’t account for transitions between our different activities, we feel behind the clock. Hurried. Rushed. Unfocused. And wishing for more time.
Without allowing an appropriate transition, many of us are not showing up the way we would like. But if teleportation doesn’t work in the real world, why do we keep attempting a version of it in our work world?
Have you ever:
Squeezed a quick response to just that one email, just as you were running out the door to a meeting?
Stayed on a call with a colleague for just a few extra minutes, even as you started typing that next memo?
Jumped on to that next zoom call before pausing and getting a glass of water?
We all do it. We just squeeze “one more thing” in.
But really, if we are being honest, what we are squeezing is ourselves.
And when we are squeezed, what does this cost us in terms of how we show up?
How we are prepared? What does it do to our focus? How does that feel for our clients and our teams? And what does it say about the kind of leaders we want to be and what we deem important?
The little transitions throughout our day are important because they sit at the crossroads between our aspirations and how we actually show up.
The way we design and invest our time influences how we perform and ultimately how we progress towards our ambitions.
And when you and your organization are rushed and scattered, it becomes a real challenge to be intentional and strategic.
Instead of glossing over transitions, what might happen if we tuned our attention to our transitions, and considered the impact they have on our workflow and ourselves?
What might happen if we reframed transitions as the time to let go and then pause to prepare?
