Four names for a worry: what I borrowed from the ROAM board

Some evenings my head feels like a planning meeting where every risk is shouting at once. What helped wasn't having fewer worries. It was having four names to sort them into.

In One worry, one line I wrote about getting one worry onto paper. But what if there are twelve? This is the method I use then, and I borrowed it from the way large software teams plan.

The Scaled Agile Framework, SAFe, helps big organisations run many teams together. Every couple of months those teams meet for PI Planning, usually two days in which they agree what they'll build next. Along the way, risks get written down: a supplier who may be late, a skill nobody has yet, a piece of work that depends on another team.

Then comes a simple ritual. Near the end, at the final plan review, each risk is read out, and the group decides together which of four words fits it: Resolved, Owned, Accepted or Mitigated. That's ROAM. If a risk is Owned, the next question is: by whom? Every risk gets a name, out loud, before anyone commits.

What I love about this is that nothing stays a vague fear. A risk that has been sorted has a home.

• Resolved. It's already handled, or it turned out not to be real. I checked, and the bill was paid after all. I cross it out.
• Owned. It's real, it can't be fixed tonight, and someone is now responsible for it, with a name and a date. Often that's me. Sometimes it's honestly someone else, and owning it means asking them.
• Accepted. It's real, and I choose to live with it, because fixing it would cost more than carrying it. The car is old and may break. I've decided not to replace it this year.
• Mitigated. I can't remove it, but I can make it smaller, and I write down how. I may lose a client, so this week I'll contact two others.

Before I sort, every worry feels the same size and the same urgency. Afterwards the list looks different. A few are Resolved the moment I look at them. A few are Accepted, and accepting them on purpose is surprisingly restful. What's left, Owned and Mitigated, is a short and real to-do list. It's a little like clearing a desk: the work is the same, but now I can see it.

It works on the same principle as everything else on this site: a thing with a name is easier to hold than a cloud. Psychologists have studied that principle for feelings, and I'll come back to their findings soon. ROAM simply applies it to the practical side of worry.

The first I copied straight from the planning room: Owned needs a name. A risk owned by "the team" is owned by nobody. So when I write Owned, I write who and by when. "Me, Thursday." If I can't fill that in, it isn't Owned yet. It's still loose.

The second is my own: Accepted must be a decision, not a sigh. I write "Accepted, because…" and finish the sentence. If I can't finish it, the worry isn't accepted. It's avoided.

Take a sheet of paper and list everything that's nagging you, one line each. Next to each line, write R, O, A or M. Then:

• cross out the Rs;
• read the As once, slowly, and let them be;
• give every O a name and a day;
• give every M one concrete action.

Then choose one sensible next step from the Os and Ms. That's tomorrow sorted. It follows the shape of name it, tame it exactly: first the honest name, then the move that fits it.

If one of the Os is really a goal in disguise, it may be worth a few minutes with the method in Name the obstacle, not just the dream.

The Bible puts the spirit of Accepted better than I can: "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" (Matthew 6:27). Some worries aren't mine to fix. Naming them that way is a relief, not a defeat.

I'm not a doctor, and this isn't therapy. It's a way of seeing that helps me. If you are struggling, please talk to someone you trust or a professional.

Don't fight every worry at once. Give each one of four names. Then do what the name says.