Better Futures vs. Future Burnout
What’s top of mind right now? More than just a metric for brand awareness, consider this our semi-regular space for free-flowing curiosity and thinking in public. Maybe it sparks an idea or two in you. So without further ado, here’s what’s top of mind…
It’s officially Q4
Which means three things: you’re exhausted, you can see the end in sight and you’re expected to pull off miracles. It’s giving Final Countdown.
Briefs are multiplying, budget allocation requires advanced-algebra levels of coordination and the conveyor belt of “high prio, quick alignment meetings” has shifted gears, entering Mach5. At the same time, you’re somehow supposed to plan next year’s strategy, hit this year’s targets, and deliver work that cuts through the noise.
Welcome to the Q4 trap. When we’re this overwhelmed by the present, the future becomes negligible, secondary…like it’s going to happen anyway, with or without us. But the future isn’t inevitable, it’s intentional.
So when Q4 gets messy, how to avoid doubling down on the old playbook of more? More, more, more doesn’t really create the future-first focus we really need right now.
What does?
Boundaries. Q4 is chaotic because everything has the same level of urgency. Now is not the time to cosplay Yes Man. Instead, consider this your greenlight to block out some meeting-free days, or push back, delegate and deprioritise. I said so. (Ok, maybe one last Yes Man for that one).
Reframing. Instead of seeing problems as world-ending, let’s use them as signals for where things can improve. Then we run quick, low-stakes prototypes i.e. something that just takes an hour to get early feedback for the future.
Futures thinking. So you got those boundaries? Nice. With that little bit of extra headspace, this is where I step in: helping teams scan for weird signals, map possible scenarios, and figure out what people actually want to change in the long-term, 10-year future.
Get playful. Get ideas out of heads and into hands. I’ve been running playful workshops where teams literally build their thinking. It’s fast, physical, and breaks through the politeness that usually keeps the good stuff hidden.
Nothing Lasts Forever
Semi-related, but when things get overwhelming I remind myself of this: in the end, it’s all a trend and nothing really lasts forever.
It’s so us
We swing back and forth, rise and fall, crash out and build up. Economies. Fashion. Music. Food. Leadership styles. None of it is really fixed and we’re all influencing each other. Lately I’ve been reading David Sumpter’s Ways of Thinking, which talks about the Fox and Rabbits theory and how we never reach equilibrium. One population grows while the other declines, and then the cycle flips again.
Now…I’m still reading the book so there’s definitely a lot more to learn, and I’ve yet to become a maths genius but as far as I understand it, the mistake we make is believing that the pendulum will stop. That things will settle eventually, when in reality, they won’t.
Which also tracks to why treating the insanity of Q4 as something to buckle up and endure, to recover from later is pretty pointless. Instead, we need robust personal boundaries, flexible mindsets and playful tools that help us shimmy along with the swing, not get blindsided by it.
Take this to your next meeting
So as you head into the last stretch of 2025, ask yourself:
What would it look like to block out one day of “SO ESSENTIAL” alignment meetings that could’ve been an email, or run an outcomes-oriented workshop instead?
What if you tested a small, playful prototype (a drawing, a roleplay, a diagram) before kicking off a whole new initiative?
What’s a reframe for the biggest challenges you’re facing right now?
Next year’s plans aren’t patiently wait for Q4 to neatly come to an end before knocking on the door for an intro. No, the work we do now is what sets the tone for next year and the decades beyond.
So you can either let the urgency of the quarter takeover and decide for you… or choose to be a tad more strategic about the future, today.
Reframe the challenges, play with the ideas, set the boundaries, and give yourself the space to think further ahead. This is not wasted time (if anything, you’ll be saving time for future you).
Better futures aren’t built after a damascene moment, when everything finally calms down. They’re built by carving out space, right the middle of it all.