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I have reached a turning point in my life where I can no longer do all the things I want and need to do. Not only because I am running out of time, but because life has a funny way of accumulating tasks that need to be done. The older I get the more complex my life becomes. That complexity needs delegation if I want to see results or meet my expectations.
Delegation is a concept I’ve been familiar with for a long time. A skill I’ve even had some success with. In recent years I have found the process of delegating frustrating. As a result I have stopped delegating all together. I was finding that I was more efficient in my work and able to accomplish more. This supported my decision until I started feeling burnout. Burnout for me results in relying on unhealthy coping mechanisms that take their own tole. Not delegating established me as an island. It shows a lack of trust in the teams I work with, including my family. When there are a million things that need to get done tackling them solo becomes ineffective, inefficient, and creates resentment. People want to help. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Not delegating prevents that. Convincing myself that delegation is important isn’t enough to start doing it. There’s learning curving in executing this skills that is feels like a hard won battle. But like any other skill it is learnable. Delegation is people work not industry work. This means it’s relationship based. People work is sticky and chunky and complicated. It’s almost always rewarding but it’s almost never easy. Which means it’s frustrating and requires patience. The goal is to not do the industry work. Delegation requires teaching. Teaching is it’s own skills that requires a lot more listening that talking. Delegation depends on asking. If we don’t ask people to do things then delegation can’t happen. Asking for help is hard. It is my experience that people are waiting for something to do. Often that something is a reminder of what they were supposed to do in the first place. Great delegation is based on observations. When we can observe the talents of the people we work with then we can leverage their skills and get the most out of delegation. When done right this makes people feel amazing. Delegation is a form of management but it is not micro management. As humans it is easy to forget. Reminders are necessary for many and most tasks. Reminding those around us of the tasks they have to do is sign of respect and care. Watching their every move is unnecessary, unsustainable, and will undermine the delegation in the first place.
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The wisdom behind “only fools rush in” is that the action is driven by emotions. In times of strategy and war this wisdom is necessary. I have been served more by hesitation than I have by rushing in. But there are situations when hesitating isn’t the right answer.
As humans we are emotional creatures. When filled with emotions and met with hesitation we feel cold and left out, forgotten about and dismissed. The last thing we want from family members, leaders, or loved ones in times of emotional upheaval is hesitation. In these dire moments we want to be met with a mirror. When we are met with anything other than how we are feeling in the moment it feels like abandonment. Left to our own devices and othered in what otherwise could have been a connective experience. Last night I was sitting on the edge of my bathtub cutting my fingernails. Halfway through I noticed my right calf was flexed, and my foot in a weird position. I stopped and let my foot relax and then continued cutting my nails.
Sometimes I forget I have a body. I get focused on a task or lost in thought and I lose track of the physical space I take up and way I move in the physical world. In college any physical awareness I developed was due to acting. Work with masks, miming, and pantomime are particularly helpful to increase awareness of our own physical bodies. What I’ve found is that I could turn on the awareness on stage but in my regular life it slips and I retreat back to the comfort on my thoughts. Getting back to this state of body awareness is grounding. Spending too much time in my head wreaks havoc on my mental health. If I’m not actively bringing myself back to my body and feeling the present moment I tend to be more:
I felt more stable when I was consistently on stage doing improv. Having an outlet that necessitates being present grounded me for my professional work in front of a computer. As my time in front of a computer increases I’ve needed to increase the time grounding myself. I have turned to weight lifting as a primary activity to help with this. Slowing down the motion and having the right amount of resistance forces my thoughts to match my movement; bringing me into the present. This has turned going to the gym into a meditative practice. The everyday carry (EDC) is an internet trend I’ve observed on the periphery, but find it incredibly appealing. It has the same satisfaction of being asked “what do you do?” and having an answer that feels both personally correct and easy for others to understand. This type of satisfaction is much easier with physical objects.
Similar to gear talk amongst photographers it’s fun to “talk shop” with people who need/want/use a set of tools in their daily lives. Especially if those tools sit on either side of the pendulum swing from our own. Seeing these tools gives insight into how people work. A bit like looking behind the curtain. It’s a good example for why Austin Kleon is right to encourage everyone to Show Your Work. I’ve recently upped my EDC game with a new a pen, Studio Neats Mark One. A recommendation from my friend Adam. He bought his 8 or so months ago and I have since been in a constant debate about whether or not to fork over the cash. The tipping point came when the pen I had been using for nearly a year ran out of ink for the third time. This small act highlighted one important factor:
Similar to spending money on a nice pair of sunglasses I have refrained from purchasing a nice pen because of my inability to keep the same pen for any given amount of time. In high school I never saw the point of buying writing utensils, I could always find (or lose) one. A little library of pens. But I committed and spent quite a bit on a pen. A week in, I’m happy with my decision. Here’s where I get to the appeal of EDC. I love the idea of never buying another pen. That this pen is now a part of me. I can scratch it off a list and move on to something more important. Because from this day moving forward I won’t be looking for a pen when I need it. I’ll always have it in my pocket. The consistency, and reliability of an EDC is what makes it so overwhelmingly appealing. Having the right tool for the right task bring a satisfaction that hard to match. Growing up in the Mormon Church it’s a requirement to have sense of emergency preparedness. When I became an adult and started a family I felt a greater responsibility to be prepared.
Living in Utah, where “everyone” is prepared, it felt less important. After moving to Portland my awareness of the need to be prepared kicked into high gear. The PNW is earthquake country. It’s part of the lifestyle. Unlike the freak ice storm in Texas, we know an earthquake is going to happen, we just don’t know when. Knowing something will happen but not knowing when is what makes preparedness essential. Thanks to the internet getting prepared is a rabbit hole. It’s next to impossible to know where to start or what to do. Any kind of catch all information will leave you with bags of pinto beans you won’t eat, or a hand saw that is too impractical to use. Getting prepared takes a little research into knowing what you need to be prepared for. If you’re building a food supply, start with what your family will eat (for us it’s black beans not pinto beans) If you’re preparing for a natural disasters what kind of disaster are you preparing for? (The most common natural disaster in Washington is a flood). For the most part preparedness doesn’t mean being completely prepared but having a plan, or even just an idea of what to do when things go south.
For most of us small decisions and having a few things in place will, at worst, make a crummy situation more comfortable, and at best save your family’s life. I wouldn’t call myself a “prepper” but I am happy I reloaded the go bag in my car when we’re out for a hike and I forgot a raincoat, or we’re moving from one after school activity to another and I can give my kids a snack without having to wait in line for fast food. Like so many things a little preparedness goes a long way. My first response to everything is to pull out my phone and look it up. The ability to look up everything and having an answer at my finger tips has made it more likely I will ignore the information in front of me. Relying, instead on the answer the internet provides. It’s a bit of a catch 22. Having more information is always better, but under developing the ability to analyze the circumstances to determine what’s needed, or better yet, what information is needed is catastrophic. As beneficial as theory is it will never replace action. “Theory is extremely important – but it can never be more than an aid, a tool for crystallizing and refining natural intuition; and as such it must always come second to that intuition. Your intuition!” The Limitations of Theory Tommy Wonder and Stephen Minch It’s impossible to describe but when we know it when we feel it. The path to get to reliable intuition takes time and effort. Robert Greene outlines the steps to mastery as three stage process.
1. Apprentice
A good academic program and where most people get stuck is in the first stage. The theory stage. It is a safe place to be. It’s easy to come back to, to rely on. Most importantly it feels like accomplishing a lot with little effort. I stay at this level primarily out of fear of failing in the next level. I have been successful and I don’t want to give it up. Especially when it comes with the all the baggage of the second stage. All emotions we’re familiar with. Unfortunately the sheer access to information becomes the ultimate stop gap to moving on. Google is a constant siren song. A distractor from feeling uncomfortable with the only path to mastery. Set aside information and go through the discomfort is the only way to create reliable intuition. In the documentary AKA Mr. Chow there is a clip where M describes himself: “I’m a prince. Look at my hands, they’re soft and delicate, no hard or manual labor.” This is the exact opposite of what I pursue.
Admissions work is knowledge work. Very few things are tangible in education. It’s the nature of knowledge. Because of that I have a longing to create something physical. Where my mark can be felt. Not in pursuit of recognition (maybe a little recognition), but in pursuit of existence. Perhaps a reminder of being physically alive. Marking my time on the planet. This is really a philosophical justification for the fact that I like to get my hands dirty. I love looking down and seeing my hands marked up, worn out, bleeding. All signs of doing the work. It started in college spending time in the art studio. I’d leave covered in paint, pastel, or graphite. This was particularly satisfying when I was working on a long term project. My dirty hands were sign of progress. Doing the work that needed to be done to reach my goal. Working at Oregon College of Art and Craft I was surrounded by students and colleagues who couldn’t help but make. Their lives were defined by it. I envied them. Creating feels so much better than consuming. As much as I like to look down and see the dirt under my fingernails I often hesitate to start or continue a project that results in dirty hands. This hesitation reminds me a story my dad told over the pulpit about doing the dishes. Putting your hands into the soapy, dirty, water to get the dishes done is uncomfortable. It can be a barrier to even getting started, holding off on the task for as long possible. Giving space for my thoughts to reinforce how awful it is to do the dishes. But getting started, dipping my hands in the water is enough to keep going. Proving at the end that the dishes weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be. I have a bias against anger. I don’t like the way it feels. I have never found it useful. If it’s not useful then what’s the point? I grew up avoiding it at all costs. Hanging on to the adage: Turn the other cheek.
Anger made me feel out of control, reacting in ways I’m not proud of. The shame I felt after my behavior was enough to reinforce the benefit of suppressing my anger. My understanding of anger has shifted recently thanks to the process of parenting and the work of Brené Brown. I’ve incorrectly judged emotions because of how they felt in the moment. With some reflection they can provide insight into who I am and how I work. Which is extremely uncomfortable. Anger, when I don’t ignore it, can be a good motivator. It’s a strong enough emotion that it can drive action consistently. Wanting to prove others wrong, may be a problematic intention but it helps manage my consistent effort to see it through. |
