Ever caught yourself refreshing Facebook constantly for 5 minutes (or, maybe an hour) after posting, just to see the likes. Catching up on every email the moment it comes in. Checking the open rates over and over for the latest eNewsletter.
Our brains are easily addicted. From the endorphin hit of seeing a like or retweet or favorite. From the feeling of accomplishment of responding quickly to an email or seeing the open rate of a successful eNewsletter. Or, from having a zero in-box.
When these routine tasks take up more and more of our days, the high value relationship-building, planning or strategic thinking gets squeezed out.
This then becomes a vicious cycle. We feel anxious about not getting to the high value elements of our day, so we seek out that feel-good high… which then further squeezes out our time.
Compounding this anxiety are the hard deadlines in our work: the date of the fundraising event, the cut-off point to send the fundraising appeal to the printer, year-end giving…
How can we manage our anxiety, accomplish the necessary routine tasks and succeed in our relationship building and strategic planning?
A fund development colleague explained one of his strategies. He had a sign printed that said, “If I can see this sign, I’m not doing my job” and then faced it towards his office chair. He prioritized spending with donors. In order to do this, he bundled all of the daily urgent (and often addictive) tasks during a certain time period of the day.
Many long-time fund development professionals have created similar strategies to thrive. As we build relationships with our colleagues, especially those who seem to have found balance and are seasoned fund development professionals, we can learn from their strategies and their wisdom. Often, they will share the lessons learned from times they weren’t finding that balance.
Finding balance in the daily fundraising tasks has been a challenge since the idea of charity begun. We can also look to the wisdom of those who have done the work of growing generosity in the distance past and learn from them as well. We can read their stories and find comfort knowing that we are not new to the struggles we face. Technology has always been disruptive. Times of civic upheaval have come and gone.
And, remember the desire to be generous will continue into the future.