As I recorded my end-of-the-week news wrap-up podcast, the news networks called the 2020 US Presidential Election for Joe Biden.
It should have impacted the recording since the cut off of news was the previous day, but it did change how I ad to approach the recording.
This is not a unique situation. Since the only time I have to record is Saturday afternoon but the best time to prepare the data is Friday morning, there are plenty of news stories that happen with the day between that can pop up as even more important at the moment, even if the point of the podcast is to offer up a snapshot of what has already transpired.
It can be hard to play to your original game plan when new data is presented.
Votes are still being tabulated for the Presidential Election or 2020. To the eventual winner, suffering through the pain of the unknown outcome will be worth it.
Suffering through the pain of showing up day after day hoping that this day is the day I strike it big? Is that worth it?
If I do strike it big, it is obvious. If I never do (and I have not), it’s about still being in love with the journey to success, even if the destination seems improbable.
I am writing daily for me because I need the practice. I need the exercise. I don’t have the luxury of lots of free time (technically paid for time) to sit down uninterrupted and write ‘good stuff,’ but I can find moments here and their to at least write ‘stuff’ with the potential to be fairly good.
I am writing daily for you because you are the judge of what stuff is truly good or not. That is not entirely true, but someone must publicly judge, and you are the public. Without a crowd to perform for, the performance gets stale quickly, and the worth of it all gets lost.
So, am I writing daily for me or for thee?
As stated above, yes to both.
But the question I want an answer to: are you reading me daily for me or thee?
There are really just three necessary steps to proper implementation of delegation, but I inserted a fourth one at the beginning of the process to address the stress many of us have with giving up on work we feel we have to do and letting others get it done in their own way.
And that necessary pre-step is to get over yourself. Go through your stages of grief or whatever you need to do to get over yourself and understand that you have too many tasks to complete and that many of them can and should be delegated to others as available personnel is found.
You must come to terms with the world of delegation, period. After you get past that, there are just three practical steps to get delegation to work.
Number one is to figure out what you could give other people to do, and what you should not be doing yourself if possible. It will be challenging to determine what work you should let other people handle on their own and the protocols that may have to change to allow it. This will become even more of a challenge if you have not come to terms with your need for delegation before you start to divide up the workload..
Number two is finding someone perfect or near-perfect to take on the work you choose to delegate. I put in the caveat’ near-perfect’ because no one’s going to do it exactly as you would, and maybe you can make a case that cannot do it as good as you. But if other people are taking part of your workload and are doing it a sufficient level, you can get more things done.
And number three, which comes back to my insert of getting over yourself before going through the process of getting delegation started, is letting them do the work. Let them learn how to do it. Let them make their own mistakes as you did in your first undertaking of developing the work. They will enjoy the fact that you’ve given them the work to do and the power to get it done their own way. They will learn how to get it done with greater personal efficiency, and maybe you’ll find they can do it better than you.
You will see pretty quickly that they are either doing it great or not. If not, re-evaluate the scenario and see if the right workload and amount was delegated to the right person. Although in most cases, any work you have delegated to others that gets done, even if not quite as efficient, will have a great impact for your organization, and your personal sanity.
