When you start to feel over-stretched at work or in life, it's time to step back and honour being human rather than an AI bot. By Jess Stuart
My laptop recently told me I was running out of storage, with limited capacity to save new information. There's no doubt about it, my brain sometimes feels the same.
Tech-wise, I’ve started using the cloud, which I can’t see it but am assured is there. It’s interesting though, how cloud capacity feels infinite, because we can't see it. It's not infinite (you get what you pay for) but it doesn't let us know in a literal way when it's getting stuffed, unlike my actual filing cabinet with its overloaded drawers (and now I’m showing my age). I use this analogy for our brains: we can’t see them and so we tend to think of them as having infinite capacity. But they don't. And when we're overwhelmed and overloaded mentally, there's a cost.
Living down under, and the long haul to the holidays
I've just returned from Europe, where the locals were all in the midst of their summer breaks. It struck me, as it always does, that those in the northern hemisphere get two breaks, one now and another at Christmas, and it makes sense. Whereas, down under, we get one break and have to wait all year for it. No wonder, come September, we’re struggling for capacity, as we stretch towards the finish line of Christmas and summer combined.
This year in particular has felt tough. As organisations navigate economic uncertainty, accelerating technology and constant change, sustainable performance depends on us being able to think clearly, stay ahead and work effectively under pressure.
AI: easing our load or adding to it?
AI was sold as the tool to increase our capacity for work, but does this increased load suit our human brain? Thanks to the technology, we’re now having more ideas, getting through more tasks and holding more information than ever before, but what about our capacity for this – to hold it, to make sense of it and to not drown in the volume of it all?
AI hasn't reduced the load for most, it's added more decisions, more things to check before they go out the door. Every AI output still needs a human to judge whether it's actually good. The bottleneck isn't information anymore. It's human attention. So while every organisation is racing to become AI-ready, few are asking the harder question: do our people have the capacity to keep up?
In the old days when I had too many tabs open on my computer it just used to freeze on me and shut down. I reckon we’re the same, in our brain, and we’ve got more tabs open these days than ever before. This was certainly how burnout felt for me, everything stopped and my brain wouldn’t function, it was like someone had unplugged my power cord. I’d nothing left to give and – I felt – nothing to be hopeful for.
The power of the cuppa
That period led to time overseas living alongside Buddhist monks and nuns and a complete shift in perspective. Every hour in the monastery a bell would chime, a reminder that wherever you were and whatever you were doing to stop, take a breath and return to the present. It’s a hack I still use today to help me regulate busyness. We also drank lots of tea, and it was not just the drinking that was important, but the ceremony, the ritual, the slowing of pace.
I was chatting to a friend over a pot of tea recently and we were likening this current busy state of the world to pouring tea into an already full cup. The cup is like our 24 hour day and our overloaded lives are cascading into it, threatening to spill over and drench us. And it's not just the limits of time and our brains that we're up against. We need to be realistic about our energy levels too. Across the board, we’re out of capacity for what modern life and work demands.
I think tea is a great analogy here. It's something I became an expert in while back in the UK visiting family! It’s ingrained in the culture there as in many countries, as a way of connecting and performing rituals.
Welcoming a visitor to the house, "put the kettle on"; sad about something or trying to defuse and uncomfortable situation, "let’s have a cup of tea"; needing to bring the family together for an announcement, "we’ll have a cup of tea".
These days though it’s less best-china-and-tea-leaves and more teabag-dunked-in-a-mug which is then gulped down while checking emails.
We’ve lost the art of ritual. Yes it’s for connection and social gathering, but consider the art of tea ceremonies; allowing time for the tea to brew, the beautiful china, the feel of the cup. The act of stopping, slowing down, reflecting and connecting. Not just to each other but to silence, the world around us, the world within us too. I love a quiet cuppa in the garden, looking at nature, resetting my brain, away from screens. It’s often where I have my best ideas or breakthroughs, probably not a coincidence.
Maybe it’s also the answer to the capacity question too – tea breaks or rituals, for centuries have been where we pause. Whether we drink tea or not isn’t really the point. It’s the space this pause creates that helps us build capacity. Like back in the day we had smoko breaks (or morning tea if you didn’t smoke!) – tea was never intended to be gulped down on the go. It was an excuse to stop, take a break, pause and that in turn helped us find extra capacity – and my can’t we do with some of that right now.
Tips for getting to Christmas
If you're feeling out of capacity, these small shifts can help you find a bit more room to breathe:
● Build in pause points: set an hourly reminder, like the monastery bell, to stop, breathe and return to the present moment.
● Protect a proper tea (or coffee) break: step away from screens and let it be a ritual, not something drunk on the go.
● Audit your energy: notice which tasks drain your energy most and pace your day around what you actually have to give.
● Close your tabs: single-task where you can instead of holding everything open in your brain at once.
● Get outside: a few quiet minutes in nature or the garden can reset your brain and create space for new ideas.
● Notice when your cup is full: build in a moment to check in with yourself before you're spilling over, not after.
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