Are you dreaming of the week when you only work 40 hours? Do you start each week with a to- do list that has items that move each day from Monday to Friday? Have you been feeling like your role is driving you and has an agenda of its own, instead of you being in control of your destiny? What if you could remove the chaos from your week and make time for the work you love and enjoy? Try these three steps to determine if you’ve got too much on your plate, not enough confidence about who’s on your team, or if your personality might be standing in the way of doing your best work.
Do a Time Audit
What is a time audit? It’s not nearly as rigorous as an IRS audit, so don’t get stressed out about the thing that could potentially bring more balance to your work life. This exercise is valuable because it’s a way to hold you accountable to you. -This is, of course, one of the most difficult things you can do. You will need to carve time out to document how you’re spending your week, and you will need to be honest with yourself about where you’re allocating time that isn’t moving your to-do list or career forward. So while it’s not as demanding as an IRS audit, it might be a little painful. Here’s a good article that gives you best practices in self-conducting a time audit. Don’t worry, it also includes a template.
Delegate, Automate, Checkmate, Re-evaluate
All of these things are easier said than done. Once you break down your time for a few weeks, you’ll have the data you need to review to assist you in figuring out what you can delegate, automate, checkmate and re-evaluate.
When it comes to delegating, that can feel the most daunting. Not only do you have to identify the right person for the additional responsibilities, you have to figure out how to get the person/ people trained to successfully complete them. This is oftentimes where the train leaves the tracks. As Anatoly Denisov writes in his article, Why Managers Don’t Delegate and What They Need to Do, “If a manager is not prepared to provide explicit and consistent guidelines regarding goals and plans, he/she must accept the haphazard efforts of his/her ill-informed subordinates.”
Delegation doesn’t have to be hard, but it’s rarely an easy change. However, when done with consideration and with the right resources, it usually benefits everyone involved.
Another winning alternative is automation. What about your role could be solved with installing a new software or process? Instead of sticking to doing what you’ve always done to get what you’ve always gotten, look into outside resources to help you streamline aspects of your job that can be handled by new technology or a new process. Yes, you’ll need to carve out time to do the research on your best options, but that investment in time should pay dividends once you decide on a path forward.
Checkmate? These are the things you just simply shouldn’t be doing. Get them off your plate, get them off your list, stop doing them. You will probably have three or four things that fall into this category. You might think these things are important to get done, but in reality, are things that don’t need to get done and can be a huge time commitment for you. Your time audit will help you find them, and you should be ready to delete them from your to-do list.
All of these actions will help you re-evaluate how you view your role, what’s important to you, and how you can move forward if you’re ready. You don’t have to make every change at once, however, being open to viewing your role differently, and giving new responsibilities to people around you need to be part of the process to get you back to doing the work you’re good at, and help you fall back in love with your job.
Is your personality aligned w/ your job?
This might be something that seems foriegn to you if you’ve been told you’re great at XYZ, and you’d be perfect at what you do from the time you were in high school. Maybe you’ve taken a Myers-Briggs personality test or a DISC assessment, and both are great tools to use to uncover what sort of skills or personality traits come naturally to you. However, this article from Florida Tech explains where the Big five personality traits (OCEAN) come into play factoring in how environmental and real work life experience influence success in a role, “Leaders can also use the Big Five on themselves to assess their behaviors and demonstrate to employees how to not only maximize their strengths, but also learn from their weaknesses as they drive the organization to success and continue to evaluate organizational behavior.”
If you can take a step back to assess how your personality may inform your decision making and truly decide to make changes to how you tackle your work week, you can regain control of the outcomes you’re capable of each week. However, going it alone might not bring you the immediate results you’re looking for. Consider getting yourself an executive coach or mentor to support you through this transformation.
Change is never easy. Especially if you’ve been in your role a long time, and have come to accept the idea that to be successful your home life, hobbies and non-work pursuits have to take a supporting role. However, if you’re ready to acknowledge that you’re open to changing how you view your work to life ratio, want to feel more successful in your role, and are willing to put in the time, effort and energy to change your relationship with how you manage your responsibilities, you might find yourself hiring for a new team member because you’re committed to delegating more. You might also find a re-invigorated passion for your role and your company.