How to Make 2021 an “Easy Lift”

2020 was not for the weak.  Never has a year felt so long and so short at the same time.  The monotony made minutes feel like days, but the absence of familiar activities that mark the passage of time, like vacations and traditional holiday celebrations, left us feeling that we just skipped over an entire year.

But long or short, it was a lot to carry.  Personally, I’m tired.  Very tired.  And, I recognize I live with a lot of advantage and privilege, so if I am tired, others are exhausted, depleted, and spent.  However, being fatigued and overwhelmed has also worked to my advantage this year, as I have become better at identifying the “easy lifts.”  

If you’ve talked with me in 2020, there’s a high likelihood you’ve heard me use this phrase.  “Easy lift” is my terminology for solving a problem with the least amount of effort.  Here are some examples of easy lifts from my recent conversations:

• I scheduled a one-hour call to reconnect with a dear colleague and we talked for five hours!  We covered it all, from psychological theories that inform our work, our own personal triumphs and struggles, trends in virtual education, and more.  So energizing was our conversation that we half-joked we should launch a podcast together.  We knew we currently didn’t have the bandwidth for such a commitment.  However, we also knew that “someday” was likely to never come, as we would always be and feel as busy in the future as we are right now.  So, we came up with an easy lift plan: Record our future phone calls.  Worst case, we throw the recording away.  Best case, we give the recording to an editor who could pull out key stories and takeaways to construct a compelling episode.  We joked that if we had only recorded this first marathon conversation, we would have enough material to create our entire first season.  Will these yet-to-be recorded conversations become your new favorite podcast?  I have no idea.  What I do know is that we were able to take an idea that felt too difficult to execute, and instead of letting it simply die on the vine, gave it the possibility of a future life with little current investment.
• I received a request from an organization to teach a short class for potential graduate students.  Given my leadership role in the organization, I knew it was a request I should say yes to, but I wanted to say no.  Apparently I wasn’t alone, because during the conversation I learned that the group was having a hard time getting enough instructors to staff these sessions.  Rather than simply decline outright, I asked a question: “What do the attendees really want from these faculty sessions?”  Answer: To meet and talk with faculty, see that they are both personable and knowledgeable, and learn about how a graduate degree could help them achieve their career goals.  I then explained why I thought faculty (myself included) were saying no to the request: it was a heavy lift.  A compelling 30-minute educational experience for a group of strangers from diverse backgrounds isn’t just a 30-minute time commitment for the speaker.  It requires hours of preparation to get right.  Ultimately, I proposed an “easy lift” as an alternative.  I suggested hosting informal 30-minute q&a chats with faculty where the faculty member could speak for a few minutes about themselves and their areas of expertise, and then open it up for questions and conversation.  This was a much easier lift for faculty, as it eliminated the tedious prep of teaching a class, and it probably better achieved the audience’s goals.
• I put a lot of time and brain cells into developing a proposal for a new project.  I was feeling pretty proud of what I accomplished until I showed it to a colleague and got the high-level feedback that the proposal wasn’t unique enough to stand out from the crowd.  My first reaction was overwhelming - this means I need to start over, and I don’t have the time or energy to start over, certainly not in 2020.   I took a step back for a day and asked myself, “What is the simplest change I could make to act on this feedback?”  I concluded a manageable step was to brainstorm a more provocative proposal title and reframe some of the opening arguments.  Rather than ignore the feedback completely because it was too daunting to execute, I was able to execute a specific easy lift that made the proposal better.

In a year when putting on clothes with buttons requires more energy than one can muster, now is the time to master the art of low effort problem solving.  The tactics I’ve used to find the easy lift in 2020 are many of the same strategies that great negotiators use (go figure).   Here are four to help you deliver maximum value in 2021 with minimum effort.

1. Ask what really matters.  When someone makes a request of you, what is the underlying interest behind the ask?  If you understand not just what they’re asking for, but also why, it’s possible that there is another solution that is easier for you to give and just as valuable for them.  That was the case when I pivoted from teaching a class to offering a q&a session.  The easiest way to find out what really matters to them?  Ask!
2. Start with your ideal outcome.  Ask yourself, “What is the lowest effort solution that could solve this problem?”  Once you’ve identified it, try to start there.  The solution may not work, but it’s worth a shot.  If it doesn’t, or you can’t get others on board with it, you could then execute a higher effort solution.  This was my approach with the proposal feedback.  There were many ways this feedback could be utilized, and under the stress of 2020, my mind immediately went to the heaviest lift – starting over from scratch.  But once I stepped back to think about lower effort solutions, I realized that there were several smaller changes that could accomplish close to the same goal.  Now I will be able to seek out feedback on the revised proposal before deciding whether a heavier lift is necessary.
3. Know yourself.  Failing to understand other people is problematic, but understandable.  However, sometimes we’re equally ignorant of our own preferences and constraints, particularly when we’re predicting our future selves.  Have you ever agreed to a heavy lift because it’s happening far in the future?  You rationalize, “No problem.  My 2022 calendar is wide open.  I’ll be able to get that done.”  Until 2022 arrives, your calendar is then just as full as your calendar now, and you’re left cursing your past self for committing to this difficult project.  The solution: Become self-aware of what you are capable of right now.  If it’s not an easy lift today, it probably still won’t feel like an easy lift tomorrow.  And, recognize that easy lift is a relative concept - something is only an easy lift if it’s easy lift for you.  In the case of my future podcast, my colleague and I were both self-aware of our current constraints, so we were quickly able to realize that fully executing this idea was off the table.  Once we gave ourselves permission to say no to the heavy lift, it enabled us to think more creatively about what easy lifts we could try starting today.
4. Explain your constraints.  If someone is asking you for a heavy lift, they may understand how hard it is for you to do, but it’s more likely they do not.  Let them know how you see the world and why the ask is challenging.  You may be able to come up with an easier lift solution.  If not, and you choose to tackle the heavy lift, you should at least get maximum credit for your efforts.  If you suffer in silence, no one will ever know how hard you worked behind the scenes to help.  Or, if you say no to the heavy lift, you want the requester to know that you had constraints that made the ask too difficult.  Otherwise, they’ll explain your no by concluding that you just didn’t care enough to help.  In my case, the person asking me to teach a class didn’t fully understand that their request was perceived as a heavy lift.  Once I disclosed this, we were able to brainstorm together about other solutions that would be easier for faculty.

Navigating 2020 has been a heavy lift for all of us.  We deserve some rest.  Armed with some simple strategies (and a good vaccine), I am hopeful we can make 2021 our easiest and most productive year yet.

Cheers to all of us!

Alison Fragale helps individuals and organizations negotiate, influence, and lead better by understanding the science of people. She is an organizational psychologist, international keynote speaker, and award-winning professor at the University of North Carolina. She also loves, in no particular order: cheap coffee, not-so-cheap wine, fabulous shoes, home organizing, sushi, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Orange Theory workouts, Hallmark movies, and The Golden Girls. To learn more about Alison, visit www.alisonfragale.com.