3 questions for overworked overachievers to have more impact
Building on Annahid Dashtgard’s post below, ask yourself 3 questions to decide what your role “should” be, because as an overachiever, it’s easy to let work expand to include anything you _can_ do. These questions can be especially valuable to women, who are often expected to do the “glue” work that is critical but unrecognized.
1) Must it be me, and must it be now? If there’s somebody else that can do it, perhaps we can share the load, so I can focus on the work that only I can do. Or if it doesn’t have to be done now, perhaps I can let it wait, rather than overload myself.
2) Do I want to be doing this in a year? It’s easy to take on work because I can do it, but then fill up my time with work that isn’t critical or central to the role. As the advice goes, never do a good job on work you don’t want to do.
3) What am I not doing by committing to do this work? It’s easy to think “I can do this work, and it has value, so I should do it”, but it misses the opportunity cost of doing the work, because saying yes to this work, means saying no to everything else you could be doing with that time and energy. An advisor once quipped “Are you doing $80/hour work when you could be doing $80,000/hour work?” as a way of illustrating that opportunity cost e.g. if a CEO is responding to emails and slacks instead of figuring out the strategic vision and roadmap.
Which of these question is most illuminating for you?
What will you do differently as a result of reflecting on these questions?
#impact #prioritization #youhaveachoice