December is a pivotal time of the year for most salespeople. The runway to close the big deals in play shortens each day and each day introduces unforeseen hurdles to leap over. The sales managers, vice presidents and often, even CEOs press to get these critical deals over the line. It’s an opportunity to observe how people operate under extreme pressure; sometimes not a pretty scene. Another type of pressure ensues at home where you’re trying to be part of the holiday activities and not just a spectator. Missing out or not helping create lasting memories for the family during this special time of the year can make the pressure at work seem insignificant. 

Kicked Off the Sales Mountain

No matter how great the sales performance of the prior year, the new year spawns a massive earthquake shaking all the salespeople from their climb up the mountain to their sales quota and beyond. Whether you blew out your number or you failed miserably, everyone lines up at the same starting point at the bottom of the mountain come the New Year. Gazing up at the mountain on January 1, it’s now ten percent higher, the number of climbers has increased and the tools you leveraged last year to reach the summit have been reduced or changed completely. 

What the Funk

Whether you crushed the previous year’s goal or you fell woefully short, it’s January 1 now and it’s time to do it all over again., “For me, January is one long hazy march. I’m not sure if the New Year reboot sends me into a funk or if it’s something else that stimulates this malaise, but ultimately, the sales rut I end up in isn’t great. Maybe it’s the feeling of just completing a year-long sales marathon and the mere thought that my next step places my foot at the starting line of another sales marathon with a more challenging course than the last one.

Too often, it sneaks up on me, but once I see it, it’s like a magic eye poster: I can’t unsee the symptoms that have been my January companions for so many years. Familiar signs tell me I’m in a muddy rut. My sales plan is safely tucked in my portfolio, yet is never released for my regular review. Failing to plan the next day tips the scales in favor of a day filled with wasted activities. Opening my work email first thing in the morning is like falling into a maze with no exits. My email replies seem like ping pong balls, always landing back in my inbox demanding another swat at them. 

The Rut Just Gets Deeper

Each passing unproductive day turns the crank of anxiety that only fuels negative reviews of my wasted workday. The first few times I drove my career off into an ever-deepening rut, it wasn’t just the pressures at work I was trying to balance but what was happening at home, too. Three young kids separated by 18 months in age and all that entails. Instead of enjoying this wonderful first world problem, the expectations to continue the previous year’s success at work and be the happy undistracted dad at home was embarrassingly crushing to my confidence.

I’d never experienced these odd feelings in my body before. Unable to fill my lungs with a deep soothing breath and sleep deprivation that got worse each day. Reflecting on my reaction, it’s a bit comical and clearly cave-manish. Instead of worrying that something might be wrong with me, I got madder at myself each day that I couldn’t control it.

Stuck in a deep waterlogged rut of wasted activity, each hasty move tightened its grip, pulled me down deeper and turned the crank of anxiety. I had no idea this is what I was experiencing at the time. Finally, after a few weeks of worsening symptoms, the lack of sleep began to worry me. The inability to get a breath at times got particularly scary. It was like scuba diving and suddenly the air in the tank stopped flowing.

Getting Unstuck

Finally, I set aside the shame I felt that I’d lost my grip on the steering wheel of my world. I reluctantly approached my wife and let her know how out of control things were for me. She knew something was wrong but I always blurted back that I’m fine when she asked what was going on. We talked through the quagmire I was in.

I chronicled what my days used to be like when things felt normal. After much more hand wringing and whining, she said, “just do what you used to do.” Of course, I argued it’s not that simple and whined some more. The conversation finally ended and I did take her obvious advice. Writing out tomorrow’s plan instantly took a brick off my chest. Things didn’t rocket back to normality immediately but over the next few weeks, the rhythm of productivity returned.

Over-Heated Brains

The brain is a complex, powerful organ with incalculable capabilities. Sometimes, the neural paths winding through our mighty, meaty data processing network get clogged because of the tsunami of information and ever-increasing responsibilities we try to manage. Imagine eight lanes of traffic suddenly trying to merge into one lane. Instead of a full signal passing through the neural highways at full speed, the entire system stalls and gets off course. Sometimes the pressures of work, family and personal expectations trigger this chaotic feeling.

Avoiding the Ruts

There’s no magic to my remedy to avoid turning off into a mental rut. I’m a dreamer and an idea bunny. My list of goals and todos is always increasing and evolving. The only way for me not to get overwhelmed is to keep things simple. Really simple. 

Controlling my mental world and making progress boils down to three simple techniques. Spoiler alert: You probably know about these or may already do these today, but the list below is the winch I use to pull myself out of the muck.

• Beating Parkinson’s law which says, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” If you don’t have a time limit to review the news, check social media, do your email, or complete a proposal to a client you’ll likely spend double or triple the number of hours on those tasks. 

Saying it and doing it are two different things, but this is one way of managing your time more effectively:

A. Increase your focus using the Pomodoro technique. The days I follow this approach are wildly more effective than the days I don’t. The science of the Pomodoro technique demonstrates that humans capacity to focus on average is about 25 minutes. So instead of sitting down to a task for hours at a time, simply set your timer for 25 minutes, shut off the distractions and get to work.

B: If a proposal is due in five days, establish your own due date of three days. Then block out a time on your calendar when you’ll work on the proposal. Turn off all the distractions and go to another location, if needed, to focus on the work during the times you’ve established.

Bonus: Along with being much more efficient, the quality of your work will likely improve too.

• Note your ideas as they come to you during the day. Note new action items. Take notes of conversations you’re having during the day. At the end of the day, you’ll be able to see the progress you made and remind yourself what to do next. Oh, and it’s okay to take credit for a productive day at work, just don’t be a jerk about it.

• Plan, Plan, Plan… Block 10 to 15 minutes on your calendar at the end of each day to plan tomorrow. Review the notes you took, look at your list of personal, family and work todos and the corresponding goals. Determine the most important next steps you need to take tomorrow in order to move another step closer to those big, long term goals. Block your personal and family time first on your calendar, the remaining time will be what you have left to get your work completed. David Allen suggests this approach in, “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.”

One last thing to consider when you’re really in a rut. Recently, I’ve incorporated spending a few minutes every day thinking about all that I’m grateful for in my life. It’s a great way to lift your head above the fog of the daily grind and find the good in all that you have and do.