07.30.08
Delegation
I have a problem with delegation. Not with having things delegated to me, but with delegating things to my employees or to other people who should handle things I don’t have time for or the expertise to handle. I have this awful sense of “here, just let me do it” or “that’s okay, I’ll look into it and take care of it” that often mires me in problems and projects I really have no time to deal with.
I can mostly blame myself for the delegation dilemma. It’s been easier to keep tasks for myself because they required specialized knowledge or software authorizations my staff didn’t have (and were tightly controlled by IT staff). Most of the time I get assigned (i.e., delegated) a new project by my boss, I figure out a new routine or process, then I continue to do it for eternity. The new projects and routines continue to pile on and therein lies my problem…
I’ve never thought to delegate routine tasks to my employees nor have I thought of using delegation as a tool to develop them into higher-skilled, more knowledgeable employees. The current arrangement leads them to assume I’ll handle everything really important while they do same old thing year in and year out. That’s poor management on my part. And the really dumb thing about the new routines I develop is that I type up step-by-step instructions for myself, so I don’t forget how to do them if they occur monthly or annually. So I really have no excuse not to train someone to takeover a task, because the training documentation already exists…
I recently read a fabulous book that spoke to the heart and soul of my problems. The title is It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor, by Rebecca Shaumbaugh. Her theory of why women don’t advance to the executive suite isn’t because others hold them back (the glass ceiling), but because they hold themselves back through hidden behaviors (the sticky floor). She says there are 7 sticky floors, one of which is being a perfectionist and not delegating tasks to others. I’m guilty as charged! Delegation is the solution to freeing myself from that sticky floor.
As busy as I’ve been lately, I realize now I should spend my time figuring out new projects and developing new routines, then figuring out which staff are best suited for training so they can take them over, allowing me to spend time developing more new tasks and routines…
Project overload!
Don’t get me wrong, but I think new projects are like flypaper– they stick too me way to easily and are impossible to get rid of! Over the course of this summer, I was appointed to two new committees, bringing my total to five– yes, that’s five committees, to generate ever more projects for me. I hope the two newest committees are temporary assignments as my library implements two major, yet interconnected software applications, RFID and floating collections. These committees are on top of a new committee generated from a consultant’s recommendation for my department last fall and two permanent, longstanding committees I’ve had for a number of years. None of them were optional, so opting out wasn’t possible.
In addition to the two new committees, my library is evaluating CONTENTdm (digital project management software). I’m heading up this evaluation and trying to get my cataloging staff trained and on board to use it (at no cost to the library). To complicate matters, I’ve lost one employee this summer and her workload is now shared among the cataloging staff until replacements can be hired later this fall. And this week, one of my most productive catalogers is on vacation. Can you say too much work, too few people?
I’ve spent the last several months working overtime way more than I wanted to, sometimes as much as 7 hours per week. Do I earn more money for this? Nope. Does it get me farther ahead? Probably not, although at the time, it seems like the right thing to do because a deadline looms or my mind is fired up about an assignment following a meeting. Will I ever learn to stop working overtime? Who knows? I wonder if other people in similar positions in other professions are as overloaded as I am.
I’m starting to feel the squeeze of too much to do, day after day, unrelenting and overwhelming. Pushing my brain and my body to keep working on a project long after everyone else has gone home and the sun hangs low in the sky isn’t good for me– I know that in my heart. It’s just hard to turn off my stupid brain, because it enjoys working on creative and challenging things until it’s exhausted. Problem is… I’m feeling as though I’m moving towards burnout or a meltdown…unless I can figure out how I can delegate some of my routine tasks to my cataloging staff. With the current situation in my department and library, I know they’ll be thrilled to receive one more thing to do. 
05.21.08
To-do lists
Only a packrat like me can accumulate multiple to-do lists. I recently mentioned the scraps of paper I’ve been collecting with tasks and projects to do and the need to put them all together. In trying to think of a location to compile them (and do them- including checking them off), I remembered the Excel spreadsheet I started last fall. I still had it on my thumb drive, so I plugged it into my laptop and began transferring tasks and projects from scraps of paper to the spreadsheet.
It was nice to see all the things I’d accomplished last fall. I knew I felt busy at the time and the spreadsheet confirmed it– it had lots of stuff checked off. Ahhh, a rare sense of accomplishment. But when I opened the file, I noticed the last time I updated it was 12/4/07. Hmmm…. had it really been that long since I last used it? I discovered a few tasks and projects that weren’t checked off and yes, they still needed to be done. Darn–forgetting them didn’t make them go away.
I know I should work harder at delegating things to other people, but it’s a skill I’m not very good at. There are lots of things at my library where I’m the only one trained or authorized in the software to do them, so delegation isn’t as simple as picking an employee and saying, “Here- this is your project. I want it done by…” If I get too many questions when I assign something, I feel like I didn’t explain it clearly enough or train the person well enough so they could work on it independently.
I also need to break down bigger projects into smaller steps that either have deadlines or target dates, so I can know if I’m on track or way off it. I recently worked with an employee to do this for our digitization plan and we both like having a general timeline in which to begin digitizing and cataloging local maps and photographs. I need to go back to my other big projects that have been hanging around my neck like an albatross and put them on timelines as well. Maybe that will give me an incentive to squeeze them in and stay on track– and maybe even complete them before I retire decades from now.
