Don't Miss the Understanding Part

A missed perspective on task delegation and the importance of understanding

Hey, congratulations on reaching this point in your life. Youā€™ve done an excellent job šŸ„³.

Now, whatever you do, whether itā€™s an entrepreneurship endeavour, project endeavour, or just a regular day-to-day job, itā€™s highly likely that you need to delegate some of your tasks to other people in any shape or form.

The Parasite

As Steph Ango describes, thereā€™s a little parasite that slowly ā€œeatsā€ our selves into dumb and useless people who have no idea what theyā€™re doing.

The parasite has a simple and attractive proposition: let me take care of this hard thing for you. Trust me, I know better.

Even though these diseases can oftentimes be found in people in managerial positions or something alike and in a formal setting, that doesnā€™t mean regular workers and day-to-day tasks are immune to this either.

The Reality

The simplest form that I can think of is when you know you have to do that annoying thing but you refuse to do that and choose to avoid it or to throw it away to another person instead. Such as you really donā€™t want to write documentation for that little thing and choose to skip with assumptions: ā€œI understand it. If someone needs something, they can ask meā€

But the reality is, my dear readers, as a human, you often forget things. And even though you might not be around forever.

And as time grows, you become ignorant and take things too easy and say: ā€œSomeone will handle that, and of course that someone is not meā€.

The Denial

I am sure, a lot of people when being presented with that fact will deny themselves and start justifying whatever action that they have done.

But whatever excuses that they might have, itā€™s going to be a waste of time. Because the real cure for this disease is just simply to fix the habit.

The Cure

I am not saying that I am 100% immune and not suffering from this disease. In fact, this journal was made as an act of self-reflection for me and my future self.

But. if you were to ask me whatā€™s my weapon against this, is quite straightforward:

Only delegate something that you understand or something that you know you have to do, but it doesnā€™t benefit you that much.

That sentence surely needs a pile of elaboration and might have a monstrous criticism.

But I believe itā€™s highly related to the Eisenhower Matrix:

matrix

You can only or allowed to delegate something because you understand that you donā€™t have enough understanding for that.

Why? Because once you reach a certain level of understanding, naturally the importance of a thing will decrease since you already know what exactly you need to do.

The Conclusion

The journey of prioritising and delegating tasks will vary from person to person. But in general, I hope this point of view will help you to make better decisions every day.

Published on: