Who's On Your Team?

How do you feel about delegation? Most of us are brought up to think that hiring someone to do something that you could do yourself is lazy, decadent, or only for the wealthy and famous. Is that how you feel? A few decades ago that thought process might have held a lot more weight.

These days, however, we are inundated with more demands on our time and attention than ever before. Caring for our homes, vehicles, and whole-selves (including our physical, mental, emotional. and spiritual needs) are just basic things that require lots of time and attention.

On top of our basic care, we have goals and ambitions that make our lives and those around us better. For many this could mean going back to school or taking classes for work, juggling demanding careers, enjoying fulfilling but time-intensive hobbies or side-projects, participating in preventative care like going to the gym, getting a massage, taking fitness classes, or working towards weight and health management efforts. Then we are have to consider the needs of others. I’ve seen clients who are balancing caregiving roles for young children and aging parents simultaneously, all while trying to spend quality time with friends and family. It can all make us feel crazy busy.

In Dr. Edward Hallowell’s book Crazy Busy he mentions delegation is key number seven of the 10 key principles to managing modern life. He states: “Delegate what you don’t like to do or are not good at if you possibly can. Your goal should be to be not independent, but rather effectively interdependent...For children and adults alike, learning how to be effectively interdependent is a major life skill.” How humbling! No man is an island—we need others to effectively manage our own lives.

With modern technology we can have our own “team” to help us do to things that we don’t like to do or are not good at. This frees up time so we can work on the projects and tasks we like and/or allows us to better use our time to do the things that take us less time or bring us more fulfillment.  

If we are around people who make us feel like we are “too big for our britches,” when we hire or ask for help, then it’s time to find new friends (just kiddin'). But feel free to use this as a good humble response: “I’ve found that to care better for myself and family, I should focus on the things that I do well and that are important to me, and delegate the things that allow me to be a better [wife, mother, husband, father, business owner, daughter, son, friend, person].”

So, who’s on your team to help you be the best you? Below I’ve included a list of folks and some links that can get the ball rolling to increase your delegation efforts.

Here are a few suggestions of people to add to your “team”:

• Dog walker/pet care professional
• Personal trainer
• Professional organizer
• Doctors
• Chef/food prep service
• Home cleaning service
• Wardrobe consultant
• In-home massage therapist
• Laundry service
• Hair care professional
• Virtual assistant

Realizing the areas in which you can afford to do some delegation can help to improve your relationships, quality of life, health, and well-being. What’s not to love about that? Simply take a look at what you’ve currently got on your plate and determine the areas in which you can start to offload. Trust me, you can always make more money, but you can’t make more time. Time spent adding quality to your life and to those whom you love. Your whole-self will thank you!

I’d love to hear from you?  What are some things you delegate to someone else? How has it benefited you?

Andrea Hancock is a professional organizer & productivity student, blogger, speaker, and educator that assists and empowers busy professionals, business owners and those experiencing major life transitions to create and maintain organizational systems that work for them personally.  Andrea is also founder of Dexterous Organizing, a results-oriented professional organizing company.  Book a free 15-minute Discovery Call to begin your journey to better productivity and more organizational prowess. Also visit our website at www.DexterousOrganizing.com or give us a call at (703) 606-8968.

The Day I Deleted My Future

I don’t remember the exact day, but I do remember the tears. I even remember the moment in which I created my demise and it was hours before I realized I was in deep doo-doo.

Here’s the story: I was standing in line with my husband at Wegmans and, like most young modern women, I was putting something on my mobile calendar while waiting. I must have also been playing around with the features in my calendar because I vaguely remember clearing out what I thought was an archived to-do list. I don’t remember the prompt my phone gave me, but I do remember it saying something like, “Are you sure?” and I thought I was very sure so I hit okay and moved on.

Later that afternoon I got a call from my mom asking me if I was still attending a family event. I, (in my foolishly arrogant way) replied, “Yes, Ma, I said I was coming on the calendar invite, why would I suddenly change my mind?” My mom explained how she just talked to my aunt who said I declined the event. After reassuring my mom I would be there, I turned to my husband and related what happened. I probably also added some snarky comment about the futility of replying to a calendar invite when I was going to have to verbally reply as well. This was moments before I realized the chocolate had already hit the fan. That’s when my husband replied that he also noticed I had declined all of our appointments together as well. I stopped what I was doing, turned to my husband and said,  “What do you mean?”. Before he could answer, I rushed to my computer and looked at my calendar. It was blank. Like blank-blank.

My calendar normally looks like this

My mind raced as I tried to figure out when this horrible, terrible nightmare could have happened. That’s when I realized, while standing in line at the grocery store, I had erased all the events on my calendar past, present, and future spanning about 5 years. .. .

To give some context as to why this was so heartbreaking,  I LIVE by my calendar--it lets me know who to call, where to go, and how to plan my day. I even have bedtime events and reminders on my calendar (Hey, a girl needs her rest!).

After my "power play," my calendar looked like this

I use my calendar for every doctor’s appointment, client meeting, wedding, and even funerals. I set it and forget it. It is my proof of life, my personal assistant that keeps me on track with my day and to-do lists--my way of documenting my existence and how I keep track of all my future events.

All of it gone--with one button push while in line at the grocery store! Hours earlier as I was glancing at magazine tabloids about Kim Kardashian (because when isn’t she in the tabloids?) and recipes on the best dessert of the season while I single-fingeredly threw my life into cyberspace wasteland.

As the panic drained my face of color my dear husband sprang into action as he saw the tears rolling down my face.Together we began to look for a solution and came across a software called Spanning Undelete for Google Calendar (particularly the one in the Chrome Apps Marketplace). Here’s what to do if you ever (God-forbid) need to get your calendar back:  Install the app, and sign into your Google profile. The app will see all the calendars you have created so you can then go in and click all the calendar events you’d like to undelete. The only caveat is all your undeleted events will also have “undeleted” in the title (which, in my opinion is a small price to pay for getting everything back!).

My digital misstep happened sometime in the summer of 2015. But in November 2015, Google created a “trash” folder for Google Calendar. During the time of my catastrophe, once you deleted an event you were up a creek without a paddle. Now the trash folder for Google Calendar holds deleted messages for 30 days. This new feature is great for things that you need to add back within a few days (like an event that was cancelled but then is suddenly back on). But for calendar events that you want to resurrect prior to 30 days you can use Spanning.

So, if you’re ever standing in line at the grocery store and you push a button and it says “Are you sure?” Well, you better be, or you might just be deleting your future, too!

Andrea Hancock is a professional organizer & productivity student, blogger, speaker, and educator that assists and empowers busy professionals, business owners and those experiencing major life transitions to create and maintain organizational systems that work for them personally.  Andrea is also founder of Dexterous Organizing, a results-oriented professional organizing company.  Book a free 15-minute Discovery Call to begin your journey to better productivity and more organizational prowess. Also visit our website at www.DexterousOrganizing.com or give us a call at (703) 606-8968.

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