Mardi Humphreys

Spin Cycle

My manager called me into her office and, as gently as she could, informed me we were trending short on production for the month. To reach goal, we needed ANOTHER big push. The room started to spin. I felt lightheaded. All I could think about was how long and hard I worked to get our current production, how other urgent projects were clamoring for my attention, and how little time I had to generate more production before the end of the month. Sound familiar? Everyone works in demanding environments with lots of competing priorities and limited resources. There are interruptions: The phone rings, a delivery arrives, an email from the client hits my inbox flagged high priority. There are distractions: Coworkers’ conversations, scrambling to cover a shift when someone calls in sick, a customer’s poor planning requires an emergency site visit. There are personal issues: The aftermath of a death in the family, managing my diabetes, concern over our daughter’s out-of-town-big-city interview. These triggers cause a sort of paralysis because everything has to be done and it has to be done right NOW. Feeling overwhelmed is a vicious circle. Thoughts of everything I have to do leads to thoughts of not having enough time to do them which leads me back to thoughts of everything I have to do. To just stand there and let my head (and the room) spin, doesn’t help me to stop feeling overwhelmed. So, here’s what I do:

After a little Box Breathing, I write down everything paralyzing me. Then, I prioritize:

What is the item with the nearest deadline?
What is urgent? What is important? (You may benefit from the Eisenhower Matrix )
What absolutely has to be done today?
Do I have to do all these things? Can I task someone else with some of them?

Then I take one problem and come at it from a different direction:

Can this problem be turned into a project?
Can the project be broken down into a process?
Can I take a step to start the process?

When I’ve got a plan to solve the first problem, will that strategy work for any of the other problems on my list?

Sometimes I pick the low hanging fruit: Reply to easily answered emails, update the shared calendar, or take the mandatory company-wide security training. And sometimes I take a bite of the elephant: I do the task I dread the most so it stops haunting me.

I stop thinking.

I clear my head by walking around the office complex, going to lunch with a friend, praying, running the dog to the groomer, or listening to music or a podcast.
After leaving the office for the day, I write down tasks I don’t want to forget, but don’t need to do right this second. I hide my laptop and phone. Out of sight out of mind. If I walk past my phone, I want to see if the customer replied to my voicemail yet. If I don’t walk past it, I don’t think about it. Sometimes, I leave my laptop in my car (my car is in a garage). I have it if I need it, but it’s not beckoning me.

It seems counterintuitive to stop hacking away at my to-do list, but sometimes throwing more brain-power at the problem doesn’t solve it. It just makes my head hurt. A solution often comes quickly after I allow the problem to simmer for a while and stop overcomplicating it.

If it solves the problem, I work during my time off (vacation, weekends, etc). I hustle, but I try to be realistic about what I can control and what I can’t. The nature of my job is to fish. I don’t hunt. (I’d like to hunt, but I can’t force the customers take my wares.) This helps me focus on what I can impact.

Work can be hard. I hope these suggestions help. Share some of yours here:

Back-handed Benevolence

WARNING: The following post is more savage than usual. Read at your own risk.

I’ve already commented on sexism in this blog, but another form of it has hit my radar and I can’t get it out of my head: Benevolent Sexism. How have I missed this?! This has happened to me throughout my career. In fact, I use it to my advantage whenever possible. Am I being lazy? Am I taking advantage of an unfair societal norm? Am I overthinking this? Peter Glick and Susan T. Fiske did an extremely thorough study on sexism in 1996, in which they defined two types of sexism: Hostile and Benevolent.

Summary: Hostile Sexism (HS) is insulting women because of stereotypes; IE: objectifying women and/or degrading women. Benevolent Sexism (BS) is complementing women because of stereotypes; IE: always being told you look good and never being told your work looks good. Thanks to the Me Too movement, hostile sexism will probably not be tolerated in the office. Women would likely rebel against overt efforts of control. But the facade of BS makes women think this control is okay. After all, men are trying to take care of us, right? It’s all warm and fuzzy until you realize you’re contributing to the sabotage of your leadership goals.

Stereotypes:
Women are born kind, emotional, and compassionate. You grab a coffee for your male coworker while getting your own. He praises you for your thoughtfulness. When you suggest he get it next time, he calls you,“bossy.”

Women are weak, sensitive, and vulnerable. Your male coworker gently takes the five gallon water bottle from you to lift it up onto its pedestal then hands you the stack of notes he was carrying and asks you to go make him copies while he changes out the empty bottle for the full one.

Women are more intuitive than men and are naturally more organized. This assumption has you doing the heavy lifting of mediating conflicts, buying the boss’s birthday gift, and being the default note taker in the budget meeting because women are naturally better at those things.

I thought these stereotypes were trivial until my research revealed the attitude behind them. Those men aren’t thinking they’re helping you, they think you’re not capable. Not speaking up leaves your manager with the impression you’re not capable. Consequently, expectations of your job performance is low and you’re overlooked for career-advancing projects. BS seduces women to stay in stereotypical roles reinforcing inequality in both promotions and raises.

Struggles: Since men and women are born physically different, does that mean we should treat each other differently? Since women physically suffer once a month and make, carry, and give birth to children, aren’t we owed some car maintenance and bug killing? Where is the line between chivalry and BS? If we believe a woman isn’t capable of changing a tire, do we then believe she isn’t capable of running a company? If your boss asks you to plan the office holiday party instead of asking the guy in the cubicle next to you who has the same status in the company, has he revealed his assumptions about what men and women are good at? Will those assumptions influence his business decisions (he lets you plan a project, but not manage it) and performance reviews (he then penalizes you for not managing any projects)? Will your male coworker get a bigger raise than you because he has a family to support even though you both do the same job? If you decide to have a child, will the boss judge you as a bad mother for returning to work?

This is a cultural phenomenon that won’t be solved with a blog post. But we can recognize it, call it out, and talk about it. So, what can we do? Share your thoughts here:

Ask for What You Want at Work and Get It

We assume if we work hard we’ll get the raise, promotion, or award we deserve. You know what assuming does. (If you don’t know, email me.) Reality check: Most managers don’t notice everything we do to get our jobs done. They can’t. They’re too busy trying to get their own jobs done. If you want recognition, you have to campaign for it. Raises, promotions, and awards cost the company money. They will invest in value-added employees who either bring in revenue or save it. When we feel like we deserve a raise, promotion, or award, we need to present a case for why it’s in the company’s best interest to reward us. Here’s a three step process for getting the recognition you deserve:

Prepare: Your company has guidelines for raises, promotions, and awards. Look for them on your intranet or in your employee handbook. If these guidelines are not public, start digging. Ask your manager how to find them. If he doesn’t know, ask your HR representative. It’s crucial to find out what you have to do to get recognized and demonstrate how giving you what you want benefits the company. Once you read the guidelines, write down everything you’ve done to meet them. Quantify your success as much as possible. IE: “I was instrumental in increasing production 7% for the month of May, 2018,” is more impressive than “I helped increase production last month.” If you habitually track your accomplishments, this task won’t take long (and if you don’t, you should. It makes performance review prep SO much easier). But, if you don’t, resist the temptation to rush this part of the process. Take at least a couple of days, if not a full work week to complete it. You’ll be surprised what you remember you accomplished while you are actually doing your job. After you’ve written everything you can think of, distill these thoughts down to a bullet point list of your top (no more than) ten accomplishments. You’ll hand this list to your manager in a 1:1.

Practice: Weave these points into a narrative to tell your manager after handing him the list. Give him something to look at besides you, but don’t quote verbatim something he could read himself. This list and your story are ammunition he can use when he goes to bat for you with the higher-ups. In a concise speech clearly articulate: Why you want what you want, why it’s in his best interest to give you what you want, and how the company will benefit from giving you what you want. Practice your presentation in front of a mirror. Your goal is to look confident, relaxed, and persuasive. Make your delivery professional and non-emotional. Annual job performance reviews are the perfect time to speak to your manager about what you want from your job and from the company, and since you know when it’s coming, you have time to rehearse. Read this to help you prepare.

Pushback: Just because you ask for something doesn’t mean you’ll get it. Prepare for objections. Note why you can’t have what you’re asking for. Does the company not have enough money to give you a raise right now? Is there a skill you lack for a promotion? Are there other people up for the award? Ask what you can do in the next six months to get what you want. Do you need to exceed your sales goal by 5% in order to be considered for a raise? Do you need to learn basic coding to get a promotion? Do you need to volunteer more in your community to be considered for the award? Make the answers to these questions S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, Time-bound) goals. Set a reminder in your calendar to meet with your manager again in six months to discuss how you achieved them and if you can now get what you want. If you really want that raise, promotion, or award, you may have to be persistent. It’s natural to be disappointed, but if you let that stop you, ask yourself how badly you really want it. Is it worth your T.E.A.M.? If the answer is yes, then keep hustling and go get it!

Share your stories of how you ask for what you want at work here:

Enough is Enough

My husband and I were shopping one Saturday afternoon along with a LOT of other people. He wanted to get to an item in menswear, but a lady was blocking the display with her cart, so he gave up. I encouraged him to politely ask her to move. He said, “I don’t really need it. Why would I buy it just because it’s 20% off?” The store didn’t sell anything we needed and my husband was wise not to spend our money. But what we think we need and how much money we spend on it, is very subjective. How do you know when you have enough? When you can buy a new refrigerator because yours unexpectedly dies? When you can pay for your children’s college tuition? When your retirement is fully funded? In the words of the great philosopher Sheryl Crow, “It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.”

How much money is enough depends on the cost of food, clothing, and shelter where you live. For example: The median cost of a home in Dayton, OH is $45,000, while the median cost of a home in New York, NY is $662,100 . It also depends on how self-disciplined you are. Respondents to a survey by Charles Schwab said they need a net worth of 1.4 million dollars to live comfortably. Who has that kind of money? The survey acknowledges that most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. In addition, a study by Northwestern Mutual found Americans’ average personal debt in 2018 is over $38,000. Clearly, these people do NOT agree with Sheryl Crow.

Have you heard of the 50-30-20 rule? It suggests you spend 50% of your income on necessities like shelter and food, 30% on non-necessities like vacations and entertainment, and save the other 20%. If you earn enough money to apply this goal to your life, then you might want to create a simple budget to achieve it. Indulge your love affair with spreadsheets. Open one up and list all your expenses. In addition to basics like rent/mortgage, car payments, food, and utilities, remember to include essentials like gas for your car, student loan payments, childcare expenses, prescriptions, etc. If you have trouble remembering all of them, check your bank statement to see your regular payments and their amounts. Once you’ve listed them, add them up and divide by 12. This is roughly the minimum amount of money you need to make every month to live the way you’re currently living. BTW, this figure doesn’t take emergencies into account. If you break your leg, you’ll have hospital bills. If you break your air conditioner, you’ll have HVAC bills, etc. Even if you can’t save 20% of your income, you should put aside at least $1000 for emergencies. It’s tempting to spend the money you’ve so diligently saved, but once you’ve saved it up, try to forget you have it. After you figure out the approximate monthly amount you need to live, determine how much money you make a year. Divide that figure by 12 and compare it to how much you spend. If the amount you make is larger than what you need, put the difference in a savings account THAT YOU DO NOT TOUCH. To find out how much money people in your situation need to live in your area, here’s a living wage calculator.

Let’s say you’re a typical American paying your monthly bills and saving part of your income. You find a non-essential item you want to buy costing $250. Before you purchase, ask yourself: Is it worth my T.E.A.M.? Why do I want it? Do I need to save this money more than I need to spend it? Do I have debt I should put this money toward instead of purchasing this item? It’s a personal decision. There’s no wrong answer. For example: If the item is $250 worth of massages, you might really need it. If the item is $250 worth of bubble gum, you might really not. At the end of the day, buying something you don’t need is not about spending money. It’s about WHY you’re spending money. Why do you want this item? How does it make you feel? What hole are you trying to fill in buying it? Maybe try filling the hole with something else before throwing money down it.

How do you decide whether or not to purchase a pricey non-essential item? Tell me about it here:

Office Vampires

“You aren’t listening to me are you?” My coworker asked. “No.” I admitted. “I’m really not. Sorry.” But I wasn’t sorry. I was working. And he was telling the same story he told yesterday. TWICE. I’d just come from an extremely long meeting with a high maintenance coworker, the office was full of chatter, and I had four hours worth of work to do in the twenty-five minutes left in the week. My coworker was in the middle of his story before I entered the room and my back was to him so why did he assume I was listening?! He wasn’t being malicious, just annoying and inconvenient, but did I have to sacrifice productivity for the sake of politeness? No, I didn’t. But, I did have to gently point out that I had to concentrate on a project with a hard, rapidly approaching deadline. Office vampires come in many flavors, but they all suck. Here are three examples and suggestions on how to cope:

Gossips: Henry Thomas Buckle said, “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” I try really hard not to say anything behind someone’s back that I wouldn’t say to his face. I learned this lesson early in my career. My office was on the corner of a busy intersection of the building and coworkers liked to drop in and chat, usually about other coworkers. With an amazing amount of frequency, I’d be in a gossipy conversation with someone and the subject of the gossip would walk into my office. This happened so often that one of the people who regularly came by to chat noticed. “Every time we talk about someone, he walks in! Maybe we should talk about Elvis to see if he’s still alive.” At that point, I knew I needed to change. So my strategy became asking my coworker for the source of the gossip. When a coworker came to my office and said, “Everybody says the manager is a jerk.” “Really?” I said. “Name three.” He couldn’t. Asking for sources and facts to back up his claim became my favorite way to shut a gossip down because it takes away his fun. If he pressed on, I let him know he’d hit a boundary: “Sounds like office gossip to me. I just don’t have time to deal with stuff like that.” I also realized that if he gossiped to me about other people, he was also gossiping to other people about me. To better protect yourself from these types of coworkers, be careful what and whom you talk about at work. It’s wise to save your personal life for your friends and family.

One-uppers: Much like Kristin Wiig’s Penelope character on SNL, these are conversational narcissists. I once had a coworker who only asked me about my weekend so she could tell me about hers. She’d ramble on and on as if she was delivering a monologue. When it was my turn to speak, she used filler words (ie: “That’s interesting, but when I…”) to rush me through my end of the conversation so she could speak again. When she was in the workroom talking to someone and I entered, she’d call my name to get my attention and expand her audience. These types of coworkers are seeking attention. It’s best practice to act uninterested. Maybe go to the ladies room or make that follow up phone call. Be kind, but don’t be their spotlight.

Parade-rainers: Some coworkers find your success threatening and will try (consciously or unconsciously) to bring you down in order to feel better about themselves. For example: Once while I was celebrating the completion of a difficult and time consuming project, a coworker said to me, “Good luck getting them to pay on time.” I snapped. Although, I like to remember it as being assertive. I said, “Let me have my moment, please. We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.” Misery loves company. Don’t provide company to these types of coworkers. It’s not really about you. They single you out because you’re convenient. This is a good time to practice your emotional intelligence. You have to get along with them, but you don’t have to care what they think or how they feel.

Office vampires are usually negative people, but they’re still people and as such, deserve respect and consideration. Set boundaries, kill them with kindness, and be assertive. Then, don’t think about them outside the office. They suck up enough of your time already.

Do you have suggestions on how to deal with an Office Vampire? Share them here:

Would You Rather? A: Face Scylla OR… B: Face Charybdis

I had a front row seat to the series of unpleasant decisions one has to make when caring for an aging and ailing parent. During the final years of my ninety-year-old grandmother’s life, she lived in her house. Both she and the house needed lots of care. She had a son, a daughter, and two adult granddaughters. She didn’t want to live with any of us, she didn’t want any of us to live with her, and she didn’t want to live in an assisted care facility. We worried constantly about her driving, her falling in her home, and her taking care of herself. My parents and uncle worked very hard for two years managing both their own households and hers. It was like a job: Grammy was the boss and the family was her team. What do you do when seemingly impossible demands are made of your team? What happens when you don’t like any of your choices? Here are three lessons I learned that may benefit you at work:

Communicate: During the last two years of Grammy’s life, she went to the hospital’s emergency department several times. These visits were unplanned and usually happened at inconvenient times. She had seven family members who could either take her or meet her there. These trips required communication and negotiation among the family. Who was on scene when the decision was made? Is this trip necessary? Are there other options? (Is her Primary Care Physician available? Is this really an Urgent Care visit?) It was like an emergency at work. Has this ever happened to you? You have a 5:30PM appointment across town and the boss hits you up at 4:55PM for a report he wants by 8:00AM tomorrow. What do you do? Cancel your plans because he needs help immediately? Remind him that poor planning on his part does not constitute an emergency on yours? Neither choice seems wise. This is the time to compose yourself, keep calm, and communicate. Start a dialogue enlisting your manager’s effort in the solution. It’s perfectly respectful to say, “I have an appointment, what are our options?”

Step away: We had a difficult time making plans during the last couple years of Grammy’s life because there was always a chance we’d have to cancel them. For example: We wanted to take Mom to see an exhibition of the Terracotta Army for her birthday, but we needed to buy tickets in advance. After much deliberation, we decided not to go because the odds of Grammy needing us were pretty high at the time. We ended up celebrating with brunch; a shorter event closer to home. Sound like a familiar work situation? For example: You need to take vacation or otherwise lose those days, but someone quit and your responsibilities increased. If you can’t manage to take a few days off in a row, at least take a long weekend to let your brain rest and reboot. Exercise, go to a movie, go to brunch, read a book, listen to music. Your brain can come up with creative solutions by associating unlikely connections. Give your brain more resources, experiences, and connections to access. You never know where inspiration will come from.

Be kind: Everyone wanted to do what was best for Grammy, but what was best for her was both subjective to and exclusive to everyone involved. It’s often like that at work too, right? Your manager’s priority may be whatever the corporate office dictates. Your coworker’s priority may be whatever keeps the customer off her back. Your priority may be whatever gets you to hit your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). When all those priorities collide, Ask yourself: Which solution causes the least amount of damage? Which solution is the most kind to the most people involved? Filter your choices through your moral compass. Remember the situation is temporary and don’t allow emotion to cloud your judgement. Stress will exacerbate the situation, so take a time out to stop and think. Make a list of just the facts. Don’t color this list with feelings or judgements. Next, list all the possible options for resolving the situation no matter how outside the box. Then, look at the list and decide what solution does the most good for the most people. Even if you can’t make the situation a win for everyone, at least you can see who will be impacted the most and do the best you can for them.

What are some hard decisions you’ve made lately? Tell me about them here:

Vacation or Workation?

Recently, I spent four hours of a paid vacation day working from home. I simply couldn’t stop. It was so quiet I could think. As ideas came, I could act on them without interruption. I got as much done in four hours at home as I usually do in eight at the office. I felt like I should stop, but I had so much to do. There’s no end to follow up and clients who want my attention, so how do I know when to quit working and actually relax on my vacation days? A few weeks ago I told you why you should take a vacation. Now I’m going to tell you why it’s okay to work (a bit) during it. Normally, just the thought of working while on vacation makes me nauseous, but here are three reasons I get out the antacid and the laptop:

It Demonstrates Commitment: It’s not fair, but it’s true. Plenty of companies expect employees to at least check email if they are going to be away more than a day; and so, the workation was born. 40 percent of men and 30 percent of women plan to work on vacation this year. Other members of my team with similar responsibilities work while they’re on vacation. I’ll look bad if I don’t. For example: If a customer voicemails me on Monday, and I wait until the following Monday to return his call, I might lose him. Since I can’t risk losing a lead, I email my designated backup and ask her to follow up. Then, I make note of it for my next performance evaluation. What good is my commitment to the company if they don’t know about it?

Less Stress on Vacation and at Work: I met with my manager the day before I left for vacation and we set ground rules. What work was I willing to do on vacation? Check email/voicemail? Attend client sponsored events? Handle an emergency? What constitutes an emergency? We set some boundaries. We determined whom in the office should be my designated back up. I gave them both a list of my projects that need monitored and their status. I told them who might call looking for me. I set an out of office email message referring to my designate and included her contact information. I proposed a time of day when I’ll consistently check messages. Fifteen minutes first thing during my morning coffee is what is convenient for all of us. I’ll either answer the messages, flag them, or pass them along to my delegate. I promised not to sabotage myself by responding to messages outside of that set time. When I stay connected and know things are running smoothly, I don’t worry. When an emergency happens, I handle it and don’t worry. When my inbox isn’t overflowing upon my return, I don’t worry.

No Guilt: I have too many pressing deadlines to take time off, yet I risk burnout if I don’t take it. Does this sound like you? Paid vacation is one of my benefits. If I don’t take it, I’m sending a message to my company that they’re wasting money. Yet, I’m expected to check messages because I have a laptop and a smartphone. If I want to totally unplug, I vacation somewhere I can’t get an internet connection. If I stay at a hotel with a designated business center, I take advantage of it. I can get plenty done in a short amount of time with free wi-fi, a secure internet connection, and a printer. Then, I tune out and enjoy the rest of my day. Tuning out is actually work for me. I have to make a conscious decision to live in the moment and enjoy it. I have to decide to stop thinking about what might be going on at work and concentrate on relaxation. I don’t mind checking in because I don’t want an important task to fall through the cracks. I enjoy my time off more when I know things are okay back at the office. I have an innate FOMO, but as long as I’m working because I want to and not because I have to, my peace of mind is worth it. And it’s worth my T.E.A.M.

Do you take vacations or workations? Tell me about them here:

Pardon the Manterruption

Manterrupting – When a man unnecessarily interrupts a woman who is talking. Example: Last week during a meeting, I was making a point. One of the men at the table jumped in with his opinion. He seemed to think he was doing me a favor by adding to my narrative. I wasn’t finished making my point and he steered the conversation in a direction I didn’t intend to go. He made it all about him because he “needed to clarify for myself.”

Bropropriating – When a man takes credit for a woman’s idea. Example: Returning from lunch, I found one of the account managers on speaker with a contractor. We have an open floor plan in our small office and I heard every word of both sides of the phone conversation. The contractor had purchased television advertising. He was writing his own script and having trouble. In a former job I wrote television commercials, so the conversation piqued my interest. I asked a few questions, made a few suggestions, and eventually offered to write a script. His shoot was scheduled for the next day, so I had to email the script to him immediately. I did. I received no reply. Crickets. Three weeks later I’m sitting in my living room on Saturday morning watching the local news and what do I see? The contractor’s commercial that I wrote. Writing scripts is not a service we normally provide. I did it to be a team player. Not only did I not make any money from my intellectual property, but the contractor also didn’t even acknowledge my contribution.

Manterrupting and bropropriating are linked. One often leads to the other, particularly in meetings, and especially in meetings where men outnumber women. There is even an app you can use to to track manterruptions during conversations. I once worked for a church where bropropriating was intentional. I was the only female on a team of four. We met weekly to plan creative elements for future worship services. The man in charge referred to taking someone’s idea and running with it a “stepping stone”. Gee, that’s a nice term for bropropriating. As if it’s normal. As if it’s not just taking credit for another person’s creativity. Here’s how it worked: A topic was introduced and the first person they looked at to offer suggestions on how to present it was me. Ladies first, you know. How convenient that I was the only “lady” in the room. Then they’d proceed to tear down the idea and offer their “better” ideas. Then we’d circle back around to my idea that they decided they liked after all. They just didn’t like hearing it from me. I was outnumbered 3 to 1. Now I know why my ideas were seldom acknowledged as my own . There were no other females in those meetings to amplify me. This process made me not want to attend these meetings. What was the point of being creative if someone else got credit for my creativity?

To make things worse, women are in competition with each other. As if there isn’t room enough for all of us. Where did we get that idea? If you are the only female on staff and another female is hired, do you partner with her or undermine her? The system is hostile by nature, but this doesn’t have to be the case. We can influence our environment by promoting the fact that the team will get further together than we will on our own. If we’re in a meeting where men outnumber us, we need to speak with authority. None of this, “Well, I don’t know whether this will work or not, but…” We can use non-verbals and power poses like lowering our tone of voice, walking to the front of the room, pointing, and placing our hand on the table to imply command of the conversation. When another woman makes an intelligent point, we can amplify it by immediately speaking up and agreeing with her and giving her credit for coming up with the idea. We can look interested when she speaks, nod our heads in agreement, and lean forward in our chairs. If a man interrupts a woman, interrupt his interruption by saying, “Jim, I’d really like to hear the rest of what Susan has to say.” It feels like trying to turn the Titanic around, but the workforce needs everyone’s brains; not just the brains attached to the loudest mouths.

Please tell me your manterrupting and bropropriating stories here:

When Can-do Becomes Can-don’t

Our daughter always wanted to be on the go. From the time she was born, I took her to appointments, meetings, and to the office. When she was three years old, she wanted to go to preschool. Then she wanted to have play dates, then she wanted to play volleyball, then she wanted to play club volleyball, then she got an after school and summer job. My husband (her father) and I usually encouraged these activities because they kept her out of trouble. In hindsight, I think we may have gone too far. Now a senior in college, she’s just a girl who can’t say no. This summer she worked for her campus recreation center, a kids’ camp, our local minor league baseball team, and she house/pet sat. Currently, she’s a resident advisor for her college, the fitness supervisor of development at her college’s campus recreation center, a member of her college’s power lifting team, and the vice president of operations for her college’s campus activities board. She’s extremely busy and classes haven’t even started yet. (Is it ironic that she’s so busy at college she doesn’t have time to attend classes?) All these items look fabulous on her resume, but she’ll quickly burn out. Can you relate? Here are three things to consider before taking on another task.

Know Your Limits: You want to be perceived as helpful or “can-do.” But you can’t do your best work when you’re over-committed. You risk missing deadlines. You get distracted by tasks that are urgent in multiple projects and neglect the tasks that are important in each project. You have physical boundaries. There are 24 hours in a day and you shouldn’t spend all of them working. Learn to recognize time vampires. These are tasks that suck the time right out of your day, but get you no further to reaching your goals. Ultimately, they make your job performance suffer because you are wasting time doing those tasks instead of concentrating on hitting your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Before accepting an additional assignment when your schedule is already full, ask yourself: “What’s the worst that can happen if I say no? Will I miss the opportunity of a lifetime?” When you do many things, you can’t do any one of them with excellence. The job market used to favor the jacks of all trades and masters of none, but not any more. Employers have a specific pain they’re trying to relieve by hiring someone. You want to find the employer for whom your skills are the cure. Be careful to not waste time on projects that water down your resume instead of honing the skills you’re developing.

Be Careful Whose Approval You Seek: I once had a manager whose motto was,“If you want something done ask a busy person.” A reputation for getting things done makes you a target. You become her go-to person when your boss realizes you work harder than your coworkers. Are you constantly working more hours to accommodate additional projects? Are you committing to another task when you haven’t finished the last three you started? If so, then your dependability is a liability. Part of your job is to make your manager’s job easier, and you want her approval, but she most likely expects you to tell her when your plate is full. She’ll probably keep piling on the work until you gently tell her to push pause. It’s uncomfortable to turn requests down while your supervisor looks at you with her big Puss In Boots sad eyes. No is a whole sentence, but you want to be perceived as polite, efficient, and a team player. So when turning down a task, be kind, authentic, and offer an alternative. For example: “I’m sorry Sue calling in sick puts you in a bind. I can’t take her shift, but have you asked Diane?” As for your coworkers, it’s pleasant to get along, but their approval is desired, not required. We tend to assume everyone else is as busy as we are and feel like we are letting them down if we deny their request. Stop. It doesn’t matter what other people are doing. You are responsible for you. You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but you have to get comfortable with disappointing people. Be careful whom you want to impress and whose approval you seek.

Use a Decision Making Process: Recently, I was approached to take on a volunteer position. I immediately filtered it through my decision making process. I asked myself: Will this be worth my T.E.A.M.? If a project or request gets caught in that filter, then I say no. Don’t take on extracurriculars because you have FOMO. People aren’t having as much fun without you as Snapchat wants you to believe. Will this project distract you from pursuing your goals? For example: If you have a physically demanding day tomorrow, should you really go out with friends tonight? People learn to respect you when you say no to things that pull you away from your priorities. Your example may even empower someone else to say no to something that is not a wise choice for her. Sometimes you have to say no to good things so you have bandwidth to do great things.

Share your stories of saying no to good things to make room for great things here:

College Educated

My husband and I helped our daughter move back to campus to begin her Senior Year last week. It made me feel nostalgic, but not in the “our-little-girl-is-growing-up” way. More like the “have-I-been-a-good-mom?” way. Our daughter is in college, but I’m earning a degree in parenting an adult child. Here are five things I learned and how I intend to use that knowledge this school year:

Boundaries: I’m going to stop feeling bad for setting and holding boundaries. For example: last Spring Break she paid for her trip. Following her return, she ate peanut butter and jelly for a week because she misjudged her next pay day. Sure, I could’ve given her $50, but what would that teach her? She’d learn she can count on me to bail her out of financial jams. Setting boundaries with an adult child is tricky. She still kinda lives with my husband (her father) and me. We have precious little recourse if she breaks our rules. If we ask her to tidy her room and she doesn’t, what are we going to do about it? Not help her pay tuition? If she perceives the house and everything in it as hers, then of course she’s offended when we bristle at her plan to invite a dozen of her friends over to cook a spaghetti dinner together. At midnight. On a Wednesday. I’ll stop making home comfy for her so she can look forward to moving out permanently and making a home of her own.

Communication: If she doesn’t ask me a question, I won’t voice my opinion. Communication is mostly listening. However, I need to limit how long I listen to her vent about a problem before suggesting she turn her thoughts toward a solution, and I must resist the urge to fix it for her. It’s hard to break that habit, but if I get hit by a beer truck this afternoon, she’s going to have to resolve it herself anyway. I need to train her to solve her own problems while she still has her parents to fall back on. Our birdie needs to know we think she can fly. Humans want immediate relief from crisis, but not every hard thing in life is a crisis.

Expectations: I’ll stop being offended when she chooses to spend time with her friends instead of me. She is finding her tribe and figuring out how to live in community. This is my opportunity to do the same. College is a natural time for her to pull away. I can make this transition easier for both of us by not wondering if she’s coming home for the weekend and making my own plans instead. Also, I’ll stop romanticizing my kid. It shouldn’t surprise me when she comes home to eat hot wings, pet the dog, and put items on the grocery list, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I need to see her for who she is and not whom I want her to be.

Sow, Reap: I will let her reap what she sows; both good and bad. When my daughter says she needs something, my first instinct is to find a way to give it to her. I’ll stop, think, and maybe ask a couple of questions before just handing over my retirement money. Actions have consequences. Adulting is one step up and two steps back. Letting her reap what she sowed is hard. But as difficult as it is to stand by and watch my child suffer the consequences of a poor decision, I have to remember that humans learn more from painful lessons than we learn from pain-free ones.

Lean On My Partner: I will step back and let my partner parent. Recently, something was obviously bothering our daughter and she refused to talk about it. Twenty-four hours later, she still didn’t want to tell us about it. She went to her room and after a couple of hours, I was worried. I started to check on her when my brilliant husband had a better idea: Bacon. Soon the irresistible smell of bacon frying on the stove drew her downstairs. She stated she didn’t want to talk about the situation because it made her sad. So I pulled an Elsa and let it go. Can I solve her problem? No. Is it her problem and not mine? Yes. Does the cold bother me anyway? Never. My husband has a different perspective on most every situation concerning our daughter. I’m soft on her for some things and he’s soft on her for others. Luckily, we’re rarely soft on her for the same things. Occasionally, I have to let him take the lead and support his management of the situation. Doing so is easier when it involves bacon.

How do you parent your adult child? Please share your story here: