EverydaySpy Podcast - The CIA Cheat Code to Never Getting Overwhelmed

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Winning and losing in espionage relies as much on avoiding mistakes as it does being skilled. The same is true for you in your professional field. Top-tier competition is tight, and mastery is common. In this episode, Andrew explains the powerful CIA tool field operators use to keep from making mistakes in high-pressure situations. Now you can have the same secret solution in your hip pocket anytime you need it... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Andrew Bustamante, and this is everyday espionage. The last time we talked, I shared a story about a notorious CIA mistake that happened in Paris in 1995, a mistake that Intel professionals call the Paris flap. Like all major Intel errors, a lot of factors were involved. Poor information, sharing, flawed resource management, personal distractions, the list goes on. But at the heart of the Paris flap was a single CIA employee struggling with task saturation. That was the critical piece that made this massive disaster a reality. Now, task saturation, like we covered, happens when the number of tasks that you have to complete

is more than the number of tasks you are able to immediately prioritize. Today, I want to give you a simple method that CIA field operators use to combat task saturation anytime it creeps up. Because when you successfully fight task saturation and win, you avoid errors that can cost you opportunities and income, relationships, and all sorts of painful, painful losses. With task saturation, the place to start is to understand your own personal threshold for managing tasks. Like we discussed previously, everybody has a different threshold for handling multiple tasks. Some people only like to do one thing at a time and other people like to juggle while walking on a tightrope. But knowing your threshold isn't about knowing how many tasks

you can handle. It's about knowing how many tasks you feel confident handling. For example, The average parent out there is rarely in the position to focus on only one thing at a time. Instead, we almost always have at least three tasks demanding our attention at any given time. What are the kids doing right now? What will the kids need for me in five minutes? And what did the kids just break that I have to fix later? And even though a parent might be able to handle five or seven tasks all at once, like my wife, right?

She can sweep the floor, bake dinner, listen to a few. podcast and do all sorts of things at the same time. But the place where a parent is most comfortable might be just managing those three ever-present kid concerns that I just discussed. What is the kid doing right now? What will they need in five minutes and what did they just break? So that means that a parent's threshold for task saturation isn't five tasks. It isn't seven tasks. It's three tasks. because after those three tasks, they start to feel uncomfortable. They're confident up to three, and after those three, they start to feel uncomfortable. Yes, they can handle more than three tasks, but that is not their natural threshold for comfort or confidence.

Immediate prioritization for that parent ends at three tasks. Now, every one of us is different, and it's really important to know your own personal. task saturation threshold before you move into the process, I'm going to teach you to fight its effects. If you overestimate your own threshold, you'll start applying the recovery technique too late to get yourself back on track. So here's a rule of thumb that I use to know that I'm always within my threshold. Take whatever number of tasks you think is the right natural, confident number of tasks that you have in your task management threshold. Take that number. reduce it by two. So for example, if I think I'm pretty comfortable handling five simultaneous

competing tasks using my own rule of thumb, that means my actual number is two less than five or three. Now for me, I am totally okay saying that my number is three instead of five. Because now I know I will never start trying to use my recovery technique too far behind the curve to catch up and regain control. The beautiful thing about everyday life that is very different from spy life is that everyday mistakes very rarely cost you your life. So if you overestimate your task saturation level and you end up getting overwhelmed with tasks, you can still apply the same technique I'm about to teach you.

You'll never be too late to recover from task saturation in everyday life. But you will make mistakes on your way to. regaining control. It's just not going to be efficient. Sometimes the best way to learn is through trial and error. So I encourage you, embrace the mistakes, learn from them, discover your true task management threshold, take as much time as you need. But if you want to play it safe, if you want to be cautious, if you want to be professional right out of the gates, take whatever number you think is the right number for you and reduce it by two. Okay. So now you have your task management threshold in mind. The number of tasks you can confidently prioritize in a moment.

Now, what do you do once you hit that limit? The moment you have more tasks than you can immediately prioritize, you are officially task saturated. The thing that you do next is not an answer you're going to like. You have to accept first that some of the tasks you have ahead of you will not get done, period. That single realization is the defining line between professionals and amateurs. Amateurs always think they can still get everything done, but professionals know better. We know that it's time to triage. Triaging tasks is something that you have to do fast, and in order to do it fast, you have to simplify. In the field, we call this operational prioritization.

of the many tasks that you have to complete. You have to find the one that can be done in the least amount of time and make that your priority. Make that the task that you complete first. You might think that that task is silly or stupid or unnecessary or wasteful, but you have to ignore that head trash, all of that trash that you're thinking because guess what? It isn't true. You are task saturated. That means your emotions are all working against you and they are dominating your conscious thought. You can't trust your feelings, but what you can trust in that moment is raw, simple reasoning.

So pick the task that takes the shortest amount of time and then finish it. And when it's done, finish the next task that takes the next least amount of time. And do that at least three times and then something amazing is going to happen. you'll start reducing the total number of tasks you have to complete. And as that total number of tasks decreases, you get closer to your original task management threshold. And then you'll be able to prioritize effectively irregardless of how long a task takes. This process gives you much needed perspective and momentum with each task that you complete. Now, I get it.

Operational prioritization can seem child. It seemed childish to me. It seemed almost too simple to believe it. But that same elementary utility is exactly what makes it so reliable in the field. Let me give you a real-world spy example. Imagine you are one of a two-person intel team that just sat down with an informant, a terrorist informant in a safe house somewhere in Lebanon. The moment the asset walks in the door, you are managing your safety. The assets. safety, safe house security, elapsed meeting time, all the tech supporting your briefing like cameras, recording devices, bugging, equipment, etc. Now, five minutes into the debrief, you hear tires squeal outside and six armed, masked individuals jump out of the vehicles and storm the safe house with automatic weapons. Guess what? In that instant, you are task saturated. So what do you do first? Do you secure the asset? Do you secure yourself? Do you secure your partner? Do you destroy records? Do you pick up a gun and fight back? Do you reinforce the doors? Do you reinforce the windows or radio for help?

There are a thousand options. Your first question instead should be what can I do the fastest? And the answer is going to be quick. You secure yourself. So you take cover behind a wall or a desk or some piece of heavy furniture. That is one task down. Yes, there's another 900 still ahead, but that one is done. So what's the next question? Easy. What is the next fastest thing that I can do? The answer is to assess the room.

You're already in a safe position covered from the immediate threat. So that means now is the time to get a snapshot of the entire current situation. It only takes a moment and then you're going to see that the asset was shot through the window, which means it's really good. didn't try to help the asset first or that bullet would have hit you. You look for your partner and you find them on the opposite side of the room taking cover, putting their own operational prioritization to work. And then you consider the external threat and you see that they're still shooting from outside

rather than making a physical push to get inside. So you have two tasks down. You are safe and you know the current situation. Are you seeing how this works? It's been a few seconds into this assault and you all. already have two tasks completed. What's the next fastest thing you can do? The third fastest thing you can do now is to call out to your partner and move away from the primary attack vector. Fourth task, you'll enter a panic room or slip out the back. Fifth task, you'll trigger an

emergency locator beacon or make some sort of short distress call. Now you are five tasks in and you still haven't pulled a weapon or tried to fight back. Why? Because those tasks take a lot of time. and time is the single resource you have in shortest supply anytime you are task saturated. So that's a spy example, right? Let's use another example straight out of everyday life instead. Let's say that you're driving with your spouse or your partner or your date home from a nice night out when you suddenly get rear-ended on the highway. Now, immediately you are managing your own swerving car, a lack of daylight, your safety,

the safety of your passenger. You want to avoid the obstacles that are coming up outside like railings and cars. So what do you do first? You do the fastest thing that you can do. You slow the car down by taking your foot off the gas. Anyone who has ever been in a fish tail or a rear collision knows that right away you take your foot off the gas. That slows down the car.

Now that's one task down. What's next? The next thing you do is you steer the store. swerving car away from the closest oncoming obstacles. Had you tried to gain steerage without slowing the car down, you'd be swerving all over the place, actually making the situation worse, right? Now, maybe you think this example sounds simple, like common sense. That's good. That's exactly what I want you to think, because you've probably seen this kind of example firsthand. This is a form of operational prioritization you have already learned through your

own experience, but to a brand new 15 or 16 year old driver, it is not common sense to pull out of a fish tail or a rear end collision. You already knew how to fight task saturation during a car accident example. That means you already know how to fight it during any other scenario you can imagine, whether it's in the office or at home, if it's during some kind of civil emergency or even just a backyard barbecue gone wrong. When you have too many tasks to be able to immediately prioritize, you always fall back on doing the fastest task first.

Get that task off the table, then do the next two fastest tasks, maybe do the next five fastest tasks, whatever you want. The goal is to reduce the total number of tasks and return back to your task management threshold. When you do so, it will reduce your panic, it will cut your margin of error, and it will will put you back in full control. If you want to know what CIA trains us to do in the event of a full-on assault like the one I just talked to you about at the safe house, they train us to do the next fastest thing. And they train us to do that over and over and over again. That is our mantra. It is the thing that we recite to ourselves at night. It's the thing we repeat to each other when all else seems lost.

do the next fastest thing because the most important operational decisions you'll ever make won't be complicated they'll be simple and that one simple mantra will keep you and your family and your legacy safe just do the next fastest thing that is everyday espionage everyday espionage is dedicated to one thing, educating everyday people. I know that not everyone will listen, but those who listen will learn. If you learned something new today, click subscribe, review, and share the podcast with a friend. Find me on social media at EverydaySpy or on my website, Everydayspy.com. If you are up for a special challenge, visit Everydayspy.com forward slash operations and join me for an authentic spy training mission. And above all else, remember that knowledge is freedom.