Your FOMO Demons Are Real...and How to Conquer Them

Personal productivity is meaningless if we constantly hijack our own plans with the sparkly ideas of colleagues, experts, and unknown strangers that catch our attention. FOMO isn’t just about missing out on parties, the hockey game, the Eras Tour, and cool new technology toys. It impacts our professional lives in a deep way. When I talk to entrepreneurs, there’s the “shiny object” syndrome (that I know so well) which hypnotizes and derails us if we let it. In the corporate world, I see many ambitious leaders take on more projects than they can chew and assign too many new tactics and ever-changing goals to their teams.

As a long-time and chronic sufferer, I have learned the hard way how FOMO erodes our focus, flow, and ability to stay present (and happy) doing what we are doing. In this next article in my LinkedIn series on personal productivity, let’s explore what FOMO is, why it’s a challenge to our productivity, and the tricks for overcoming it.

What Is “Work FOMO”? And What Causes It?

The worst times in my business can always be traced back to periods when I have attacked too much at one time. I once tried to launch a course, rewrite my book, and learn online sales while handling a massive client load. Each of these was a big stretch and I couldn’t do any of them up to the standard I expected of myself. It was a classic case of FOMO leading me to spread my time, energy, and attention too thin.

With a lot of soul-searching, I have realized that FOMO is one of my biggest personal productivity problems because it leads to distraction, task-switching, and second-guessing myself.

Here are what I believe are the three? key sources of work FOMO:

• Lack of realistic thinking. Maybe you looked at your schedule today and found yourself booked for back-to-back coffee meetings while having a big project deadline, a workout scheduled at lunch with your trainer, and a date to play squash after work. When we are not realistic about the limitations of our time, energy, and attention, our FOMO takes over leading us to bite off more than we can chew. We want to say yes to every social engagement and educational webinar but there is a reality in how much we can handle.

• Too many options. In the olden days, you worked at work and vacationed on vacation. But for many of us this delineation is now gone. We can try no-screen time outings, “away” messages on our email, and lots of other hacks, but today’s knowledge workers have way too many options for what they can be doing at any given time at work or at home (or even on vacation). We’re constantly looking to our left, right, front, and back, and from one stream of information to another, constantly pulled away from our own goals, strengths, and approaches.
• Too much advice. There is a lot of advice out there, and much of it is free. Of course, some of it is bad, but a lot of it is actually very good. There are a lot of uber successful, smart, incredible people I admire whose advice I follow through their books, podcasts, newsletters, and social feeds. But the problem is: There’s too much advice and it often conflicts. (For example, I am a big fan of Cal Newport’s Deep Work and equally Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi yet their opinions are polar opposites of each other.) I am not saying don’t learn from the experts or follow advice or seek a mix of perspectives. But be cautious about how you test it out. Trying to implement more than one program, idea, or method at once gives you the paralysis of advice–FOMO.

Why FOMO Makes Us Suffer?

So, when it comes to our work lives, there’s another way to explain the Fear of Missing Out that helps us get to what’s really going on:

F - FRUSTRATION - That our plans may not be exciting enough, original enough, or effective enough. We’re going to miss out on that one idea, connection, “in” thing.?

O - OTHER-FOCUSED - Thinking someone else’s way should be your way or an unease with what we are doing in the present moment.?

M - MODELS WE CAN’T LIVE UP TO - Using other people and businesses as? “models,” forgetting that they may be altered, beautified, unrealistic, or the finished “product” (without showing the mess it took to get there).?

O - OVERTHINKING or OVERCOMMITTED - Overthinking leads us to question what we are working on. Overcommitting gets us involved in too many projects, tasks, goals, and ideas than we can realistically follow through on.

And, Finally, Redefining FOMO and A Way Out

If we want to overcome work FOMO, we need a new way to look at it. We can do that by flipping it on its head. We can Focus On Major Outcomes.

• Focus means you are putting your attention on one or two things at a time. We can only be productive on things that we put our best and the right amount of attention on.
• On means on, as in “Game On!”
• Major means things that are significant and meaningful. This could be a focus on health, career growth, family, or friends. It doesn’t mean climbing Everest (though it could) or launching a massive business initiative, but it does mean taking real steps that will move the needle.
• Outcomes means looking at results for the long term. The more we are driven by results, the more realistic we become. We stop running in a million directions.

Three years ago, with the slow-down from COVID and more time on my hands with in-person client meetings canceled, I finally decided to finish the manuscript for a book I had been working on for a number of years (which later became The 24-Hour Rule ). I was constantly looking at new books in the business category for ideas (there is an endless stream of new titles that range from so-so to brilliant) and watching what experts were doing and I could never commit to taking one path and getting the project done. Finally, since I knew I wasn’t the baking-sourdough-bread type, I dedicated a week to assessing the project and, wisely, reached out to some publishing experts who might help me, and also told my husband and a few friends that this was the year I was going to complete the book.?

As I expected (and should have expected many years sooner), the project took more work than I had originally thought, but the Focus On Major Outcomes let me finish the project in 5 months (2 months longer than I had hoped) and of course there were many months after to revise, find a publisher (I was very lucky!), and launch the book. While I’m not a bestseller, the book has served me, my business, and my readers well. That’s the power of Focusing On Major Outcomes, to eradicate FOMO in the truest sense by pushing through on your projects that matter to get them across the finish line.

What are your FOMO demons and how are they impacting your productivity? How can you Focus On Major Outcomes to get your most important projects done?

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