My wife just got back from a week of business travel that had me and our two kids again attempting to fill her huge shoes while she was away. We had hoped that the dog would help help us absorb some of this load, but he's really only good at barking at stuff, being soft, and gnawing on tennis balls, so no dice there.
You see, our life is very much set up for two adults running things. One takes the daughter to gymnastics while the other gets dinner ready. One walks the dog while the other gets the kids ready for school. One helps with homework while the other does dishes.
With my partner-in-crime away, I find that all of these tasks now fall on me, and while the workload isn't so exactly overwhelming, it is noticeably more time-consuming.
It turns from parallel processing to serial. There's now a serious bottleneck for all that's to be done...and it's me.
What inevitably feels easiest and most natural for me is to just shoulder the whole damned load. I can do everything. All by myself. I'm fine. Never better.
It's the same at work or home when it's crunch time. I'll just stubbornly do it all.
Unfortunately, this overly tactical thinking is filled with hidden tradeoffs that aren't always obvious unless someone is willing to look a bit beneath the placid surface.
If I fill my time bearing the entire brunt of the daily family to-do list, there will be a considerable impact on my ability to perform higher-value items:
- Hobbies
- Entrepreneurial endeavors
- Health & Fitness
- Spending actual quality time with my kids.
- Writing amazingly insightful prose on the internet
Obviously, I'm way happier when I'm goofing around with my kids or playing my guitar than when I'm a simple task rabbit hopping from obligation to obligation until the daylight dies. And at work, it's way more fulfilling to work with the team to ship a massive feature than to sit in yet another bullshit meeting that should have been an email.
These energizing activities are things that only I can do. They are what make me unique. They are what give me life. These are things I cannot delegate. Yet I will sacrifice them for things that I can delegate.
So as I lead teams at work, and now this rag-tag triumvirate at home, what am I supposed to do?
Spoiler alert: It starts with letting go.
Delegating is multi-threading
If you're not familiar, multi-threading is a computer science term that describes how a computer or application can
perform multiple tasks simultaneously. It relies on the underlying system's ability to effectively manage and coordinate
these threads.
The system needs to delegate the available resources efficiently to manage the various threads and activities. It can't do everything by itself.
As fastidious and productive as many of us like to pretend we are, a lot of us waste a lot of our true potential. Why? We simply suck at asking for help.
There are many primary reasons why, and when you dig a little deeper, a lot of them are based around our old friend:
fear.
We fear that we'll inconvenience others.
"They're probably pretty busy," we say, ignoring our own heaping workload and decreasing our effectiveness. The reality is that in most healthy teams, there is always capacity and willingness to step in to help.
We fear that no one can live up to our standards.
"I'll just do it so it's done right." We ignore the fact that we all make mistakes and that if someone often misses your expectations, it's likely you who is not communicating the ask clearly.
We fear irrelevance and obsolescence.
"I don't mind being the only one that can do this task; after all, it's job security." The irony is that if you or your process is a bottleneck, the team will eventually be forced to find ways around you, almost ensuring you do end up slipping into the dustbin of obscurity.
We fear that we won't get credit.
"Why would the CEO keep me around if he knows my team is actually doing a lot of the work?" You may not want to admit it, but in many companies these days, people often fear that if there's an unfortunate event such as layoffs, they'll be seen as a redundant layer of "middle management." As a result, many of us spend a large amount of our time trying to "stay busy" with a flurry of scattered activity that is likely not that valuable at all. We are wired this way from an early age, as we get gold star stickers on our single pieces of daily homework, but the admiration and validation as you grind for weeks or months on something big seems to be sometimes nonexistent. Remember, a business succeeds on outcomes, not trite gold stars. Are your idle tasks actually making the company as a whole better?
There are more deep-rooted boogeymen in our heads that keep us mired in busy work and our teams often searching in the dark. Despite these reasons, we must find a way to break free of these chains of apprehensive single-threadedness.
Luckily, there is usually one antidote to fear: trust...
Trust: Your ticket to Freedom.
The fix to all of this is simple, so I'll cut to the chase here:
Most of us don't know what we're doing, and we're learning as we go along, so you need to freaking trust the people around you.
I said it was simple, but I know it's not easy. It's going to be really hard. You're going to want to just go back to your old "I'll just do it" ways when the pressure is on. RESIST THIS. This is an intervention and I'm telling your right now that you are actively harming yourself and others around you. LET GO.
When we trust people to help us carry the weight, whether they're employees or our children, a couple of magical things happen to them:
- They should ask you questions (communicating better)
- They learn new skills (learning better)
- They get a boost of confidence from the experience (feeling better)
And, perhaps a few neat things happen in your world:
- You get a chance to have a conversation and correct anything that's not quite right (communicating better)
- You may get to teach (teaching better)
- Most importantly, you get to spend more time on the things that only you can do, which are generally things you want and need to do (feeling better)
Imagine if this was a product and I was pitching it on ABC's hit show, Shark Tank. I'd have Mark Cuban and Kevin "Mr. Wonderful" O'Leary fighting for a half-percent equity in my amazing new idea. It's that good. It just works.
Of course there are exceptions here (solopreneurs and single parents have my utmost respect), but even in the outlier scenarios there are usually people to help, even if it means you have to pay for that help. If you're able and in that case, you're just buying your time back to keep you focused on what'll ultimately lead you and your family to greatness.
Most of us have at least halfway capable teams, however, so there is no reason for you not to start trusting them right this very moment (aside from the fact that you suck at trusting them).
I'll leave you with a simple 3-step checklist:
- This very moment, find three things you do regularly that take the life out of you.
- Ask someone to help you.
- Enjoy the freedom.
P.S. If you don't have a capable team, might I recommend you take a look at some of my earlier writing. I've been there, and I know it can be hard. But, it's not hopeless. You can do it: