Where is your pain these days?

Quickly identifying bottlenecks in your social sector work and life
Picture this. After two weeks of back and forth planning you finally find time to catch up with your friend who also works at a social sector enterprise. Talk quickly turns to a massive conference that they are responsible for delivering. The boss is stalling on reviewing the concept documents and registrants are clamoring for more info as the deadline looms. Kindergarten is starting next week, the summer babysitting schedule has ended but school has not yet started and there is the school physical all the supplies  that need to happen before school kicks off. Not enough hours at work and scarce time at home to regroup and prepare for the start of school. Argh! Too much of everything and not enough of what we really need!
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No, I’m not a doctor (or a psychiatrist) but don’t you want to know what is causing you pain in your life and your work in the social sector? When stress rears its head, where does this feeling really come from? Is it the looming conference or something else? These are of course happy problems to have but most of us working in social sector endeavors are lucky, able to pursue cause-based activities that we believe in and live (somewhat) normal lives in the process. 

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Along with the pain you should also identify what is working in your life and career. When you are in the happy zone what is causing this feeling? This is a smart and fast way to identify and later solve the bad and amplify the good parts of life and work. 
Identifying pain and pleasure points in your current status can launch a network of linked productive and useful thoughts that are at the root of improvement and making things better for those you are trying to assist and for yourself. This process will make you better and able perform at your best level at work and at home. 
Like you I’m striving for the perfect life and professional package. We are always searching for something that will provide maximum impact for those that we serve but also a way to live a real and present life with the rewards of family and a community as we also achieve impact and social change. 
The 80 / 20 approach for the social sector professional 
The 80 / 20 approach known as the Pareto principle says that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. Other writers have endlessly applied this to business settings but what does it mean for social sector professionals maximizing life and work impact? How can we apply this 1800’s principle to the networked, internet age social enterprise environment where we work.

For the social sector professional here’s an exercise that works: Write down all the 20% of things that are causing you 80% of the pain in your life and work. 
My list looks like this: 

• Low quality interactions based on maintenance work despite a flexible work setup (WHAT? I have available time and the ability to define my schedule for some parts of the year but still feel a time scarcity and that work hours are never enough. ARGH so frustrating! This can lead to the martyr complex.
  
• Distractions by social and mainstream media (the Twitter and NY Times rabbit holes… I’m falling in every time I turn on the stream for a legitimate reason, 45 minutes are gone with no perceivable benefit besides an ego boost or crash)
  
• Feeling insignificant in relation to others with standard high earning/high expense private sector lives (Jonny your friend from college slacked off in school, bummed around then managed to get through law school, now he’s making BANK while you’ve been slaving away at your social sector career barely paying the bills and not able to keep up). 
  
• Getting the babies and toddlers to sleep more (SLEEP! I know you are tired...I know I am exhausted, when will this cycle end? Sound familiar?)
  
• Sleeplessness triggering low performance at work and bad behavior with my significant other (I didn’t get enough sleep. Nothing is getting done at work. I’m being a jerk at home and you can now be a jerk to me). 
  
• Structuring my work on multiple projects in a remote management/networked environment (Ah, the freedom of the internet age with working from a home office. 
  

Now make it positive, write down the 20% of things that are causing you 80% of your rewards. 
For me this is:

• High quality time with kids (When its good its GREAT, teaching them a sport that you love, learning their zen-master living in the moment love for life). 
  
• Ability to get away every so often with my significant other (Not yet mastered but in process - traveling away for a few days sans kids to reconnect, relax and revamp). 
  
• Daily athletic training (run, bike, swim, weights for 60 minutes somewhere in the day to reset, keep a strong body and kill stress before it starts)
  
• Rewarding work and travel (collaborating with teams across space and time around a common good cause...ah the best).
  
• When I see a work project completed and in action, helping people (We did it, yes, it works!)
  
• Making space to develop new ideas and projects beyond the standard flow (Reading, connecting with others and bringing in new ways of working and living that makes everything better). 
  

What to do next
Now you know. Now you have taken a look at the deeper issues are that are making you feel pain or reward related to your life and work in the social sector. After you have developed this 80 / 20 pain and reward analysis. sit back. Let it rest on your desk or in your Evernote for a few days, then revise. 
This is the first step toward making a life map and a work map that can orient your world and help you make both easy and tough decisions along the way.
Now try thinking about ways to categorize these pain and reward points. What could you change? How could you outsource or eliminate some of the pain points? How do you maximize and amplify space for the rewards activities?
Many of these social sector techniques can apply strictly in a professional sense. Try applying the 80 / 20 pain and reward model to your work environment, or even those that your group is serving. Are you working past the symptoms to the underlying pain and reward locations?