One of the most effective things any person or team can do to improve the way they work is to make their work visible. Unless you work in a factory building physical things, chances are most of your work is invisible. It lives in emails and in documents and in conversations. It's not physical stuff that you can easily see in front of you. It's hard to get an overall picture of where all your work is in your process and where things are getting stuck. On a factory floor you can see a pile of parts build up in front of a bottleneck. It's really hard to do that with invisible work. Invisible work generally only becomes visible when there is a problem.

So if you want to understand your work, you need some way to make it visible. Make a big board somewhere and put cards on it representing all the work that is in flight and where it is in your process. By visualising work that is usually invisible, you can start to see patterns and make changes to improve the flow. If is invisible you can't control it. You only become aware of it when it jumps out at you and causes you a problem. By making the invisible visible you gain control over something. That works great for things like invisible work, but what about other invisible things? Things like our own internal states - our thoughts and emotions. 

What? Surely they aren't invisible? Surely we are aware of our own emotions and thoughts?

Well yes, kind of. But we generally only become aware of them after they have happened. We become aware that we are angry. It's already happened. There is nothing we can do about it. Much like us only becoming aware of invisible work when it causes problems, we tend to go through life essentially unaware of our own internal state. Until it causes us problems. And without any visibility, we have no control.

We become aware of our states only after they have happened to us. We become aware of happiness only after we have become happy and become aware of anger only once we are already angry. We tend not to be aware of these states as they are are forming. In a sense, we only become aware of them when they already have control over us. They control us, we don't control them.

Now normally this isn't a problem. It’s OK if we suddenly find ourselves happy or content. But suddenly finding ourselves angry and lashing out at those around us, or suddenly realising that we are super stressed and anxious is a different matter. Invisible emotions and thoughts aren't a problem, until they suddenly are.

What if we could spot these things before they happened? What if we could make them visible before they have control of us? What would happen then? Well, just like a visual board makes invisible work visible and gives us control, having some way to make invisible internal states visible also gives us a level of control over them.

If we can somehow feel ourselves becoming angry before we are actually angry then maybe we can stop ourselves. Leave the room. Go outside. Cool down. Or we can choose to get angry because this is something worth being angry about. Either way, it's choice we can make. In between stimulus and response is a moment. If we can see that moment we can make a choice in that moment and take control.

So how do we do it? How do we become aware of these internal states that we apparently live our lives blissfully unaware of? I know it sounds trite (just like the statement "build a board" is trite) but all you need to do is become aware. Pay attention. Be mindful.

Now some of you are probably thinking right now "Hey... that sounds a lot like mindfulness" and you know what? It kind of is. Yes, mindfulness. Yes, the thing every grifter, snake oil seller, new age weirdo and perfectly toned "wellness influencer” on Instagram is trying to sell you something expensive for. Well. Good news. Mindfulness, which really just means being mindful of things - noticing, being aware of things - is free. It requires an investment of zero dollars in zero easy monthly instalments at zero percent interest. It requires no fancy cushions, special oils, jade eggs, special clothing or incense. All it takes is some practice. Nothing to sell. Nothing to buy.

Pay attention to what's going on in your head. Stop every once in a while and ask yourself what you are feeling? When was the last time you did that? Why not do it now? What are you feeling? Not how are you feeling (OK, I guess), but what are you feeling? Puzzlement? Interest? Excitement? Frustration? Confusion? What are you feeling?

Pay attention to what is going on in your body as well. Your body will usually feel things well before your brain becomes aware of them. What is your body feeling? Is that tightness across the shoulders just your lousy keyboard posture, or is it stress or anxiety that your body is aware of but your brain hasn't registered yet? Let your body tell you what it's feeling.

Now try to connect the two. Your brain is telling you that it's feeling frustrated right now. What's your body feeling? What does frustration feel like for you. Anger? Joy? Curiosity? How do they feel in your body?

Can you shift states by changing things in your body? If irritation feels like a tightness across the shoulders, what happens if you stand up and loosen your shoulders? If anger feels like a tigeneing across the chest, what happens if you throw your shoulders back and expand your chest? What about the other way around, if you can flip your brain from anger to curiosity, what does that do for the headache that has been building or the last few hours?

If you can become aware of your internal states before they take control of you, you can take control of them. You can make a choice as to whether to become angry or sad or happy or curious or whatever. 

I'm not saying here that you should choose to always feel positive emotions, BTW. Some things are worth being angry over. Some things should make you sad. But some things shouldn't and if you can make them visible and take control, you will have a choice.