Linda was shocked by my request to cut her to do list in half.
She had hired me as her coach after she narrowly avoided an automobile accident caused by almost falling asleep at the wheel. The stress of managing three major projects had driven her to work over 70 hours in each of the last four weeks, and the end was not in sight.
Linda knew that her manager was as stressed as she was, and felt that requesting relief would be viewed as a sign of weakness and might have a negative effect on her career.
“Choose to keep only the items that require your personal attention. Delegate those that someone else can do. You are being paid for your ability to coordinate tasks creatively and not to do everything yourself. Your ability to do your real job well is being affected by your exhaustion.”
As Linda listened, she began to feel relief. She had known for some time that something was wrong. Her commitment to really support her people had gradually overwhelmed her. Each new task had seemed small, but together they were diverting her energy from her most important goals, and she really was tired.
Linda was grateful that someone else understood the situation immediately, and could reinforce her own awareness that something needed to shift drastically in order to preserve her life and sanity.
Somehow the importance of developing the people that reported to her had gotten lost in the chaos. She could easily deputize several good people to attend meetings that were on her schedule. That would even save the effort of transmitting information from those meetings back to her teams.
Some of the items on her list could even be dismissed. They had been there so long that they were no longer relevant.
When I asked Linda a series of personal questions, she admitted that she was consuming enormous quantities of coffee, eating fast food on the run, and sleeping only a few hours a night. She was also feeling guilty because she was becoming a stranger to her own children. Although her husband was supportive, she was ignoring him, too.
As the conversation continued, Linda realized how she had been denying the seriousness of her situation. Somehow saying it aloud to another person made it more real. She readily accepted my suggestion to take a long weekend off to just get rested, before evaluating her situation any further.
A week later, during her next coaching call, Linda reported that she had managed to cut 20 hours off her workweek, and was feeling almost human again.
The work was getting done and she was ready to start thinking about changing other aspects of her life to bring it into a better balance. She decided to start on some of the self-assessment and personal development programs I had suggested that she consider using. I recommended that Linda choose only one program to focus on instead of trying to do them all.
