choong pw

If you’re into tech, I strongly encourage you to follow this channel @ALifeEngineered. I love the way how he unpacks his career journey into bite-size advice for people to follow. Most importantly, the philosophy and principles he shares are so relevant to what I am experiencing in my part of the world too.

Today’s blog is about unpacking one of these newsletters that resonates well with me. Titled “When trying harder get you worse results”.

Enough of the intro then…

As I was reflecting on Q1 work and strategizing for Q2, I often tried to get some inspiration from some old self-improvement articles or books like this.

Many books share this principle which just highlights the importance of not overcommiting. For example, the 7 Habits talks about “Habit 3: Put First Things First”, and One Thing which highlights focusing on the one thing to produce results.

I never really thought about how overcommiting intersects with the 2 book theory. With this, it makes so much sense to say NO as it can affect greatly the output you can deliver.

Often time you won’t notice that you’re overcommiting. It takes consciousness to take a step back to see the big picture to realize it. And, that is what happened to me in the last quarter. In my case, it is this reflection.

Some things are non-negotiable and some are. These are some of those big stones that I feel I didn’t do well…

1. the house renovation that has taken so much of my attention. There are so many micro-decisions to be made because a lot of hard-earned money is put into this and can’t be reversed.
2. #battlemode. As my company is fighting through the EBIDTA negative, there are things to be done to save costs and set up new opportunities. Frankly, I set myself with some over-arching goals, including obtaining one cert. In the end, a lot has to get carried over to this quarter.
3. taking on an additional Technical PM role on top of EM for 2 squads. This is needed to help offload my team so that they can focus more on the operation.
4. security and compliance initiative. I am glad I have my direct report backing me on this. Helping to champion some of the initiatives in this domain.

Reading out loud like this, I realized a lot of things can be delegated. Even if is short-term or temporary. I believe the support culture we have can support this kind of request.

Conclusion

Committing to responsibility is a noble thing to do. Indeed, it helps you grow too. Realizing that there will be a diminishing return, is important to take a step back and prioritize what is important now. Getting one out of the way, and giving it a closure can reduce the amount of context switching needed. Thus, being more effective.

In an organization, there is plenty to go around and to share responsibility. Big reminder for me to continue to delegate, and make room for new commitments.