I started to write about  “too busy” this week and as I reflected on how we become too busy and what impact that has on our clients, I ended up looking at the relationship between technology, emotional intelligence and our productivity.

Technology is an incredible tool to increase our productivity by giving us amazing ways to communicate more clearly, share information more effectively and build systems to leverage our skills and expertise.

The shadow side to technology is that when we don’t know how to use the tool, we can spend a huge amount of time doing unproductive work.

Emotional intelligence gives us the ability to engage emotionally and intellectually with the people we work with. With a high level of emotional intelligence, we connect more quickly, build more trust, avoid conflict and solve their problems more efficiently.

The shadow side of emotional intelligence is that when we don’t set boundaries around our emotional capacity, we can become overwhelmed by sharing thoughts and feelings with people when it is not productive for our real estate practice.

To achieve the next level of success, we need to understand and manage this intersection.

Ultimately, the way we look at technology can help us in productively building emotional intelligence, and our understanding of emotional intelligence can help us learn about technology. If we treat learning emotional intelligence like learning a new computer program, it gives us the space to be inquisitive and patient with ourselves while we learn. Likewise, if we look at coming to understand new technological systems as an organic learning process that just needs time, practice, and the exercising of intuition, the way we build emotional intelligence, it will give us the space to be creative with how we use technology.

Where in your business are you in the shadow side of technology and where are you in the shadow side of emotional intelligence?