Delegation

Do you know what I do? I take on too much stuff; too much work and too much extraneous non-work activity, and then I get stressed out and complain about it. The classic answer to people who complain about this problem is to tell them to learn how to say no. “You have to learn how to say no!” This is well-meaning (usually) advice from people who think that you lack assertiveness; that you lack the ability to speak up for yourself. 

I think I know how to say no. I often just choose not to say it. I choose to be overly helpful, and I choose to fill my days until they’re bursting and the seams. And sometimes I find great satisfaction and fulfillment in those choices, but not today. Today I just have too much to do and I’m cranky and irritable. I know how to say no; I just have to actually say it once in a while. 

*****

I haven't been a manager for a long time, not since before I had children. Now with the benefit of both experiences (parenthood and management), I can say that the two roles definitely have much in common. My average day as a project manager consists of answering unanswerable questions, and their attendant follow-up questions. It’s exactly like being the mother of young and inquisitive children. It’s exhausting. 

Another thing that I do as a parent and a manager is to figure out when to help people and when to do things for them, and when to make them figure things out for themselves. The Q&A part is easy for me but this part, the figuring out when to let go, predictably, is not. It occurs to me that there is supposed to be some delegation happening; it is also beginning to occur to me that the delegated work is flowing in the wrong direction. I have no idea how this happened but I am now writing a white paper that someone else is supposed to write. Because I didn't have enough to do already. And there's another thing that project management has in common with parenthood. It's all PsyOps, all the time. I just need to be the experimenter rather than the experimentee.