How To Deal With Overwhelm (Finale)

Let's recap. When you suffer from overwhelm, you have 3 options:

1. You can become better at organizing yourself

2. You can choose to do fewer things

3. You can learn to delegate tasks to other people

Today, we will look at option 3 — delegation.

I.

If you want to scale and become more and more productive, you need to learn how to delegate.

You can have the perfect Notion system. You can be laser-focused on your most important project in life. But even so, eventually, you will hit a ceiling.

You can simply not be as effective as a team, even a mediocre one. A world-class soccer player taking on a minor league team will still lose. A UFC fighter will still get beaten up by a band of hooligans.

II.

Delegation comes hard to most of us. We hate watching somebody else do a lukewarm job when we know we can do it perfectly ourselves.

Now, most productivity gurus will tell you to just get over it. I disagree.

III.

The magic is in the hiring. More specifically, it is your job to hire the A players. Because with a team of A players, delegation suddenly becomes easy. It is not difficult to pass over responsibility to people who regularly surprise you with their creativity and work ethic. It becomes fun.

But these people are rare. That means you have to always test out numerous people. And even then, you might still be wrong. If that's the case, fire your miscast fast and start over again. Yes, it's annoying. But staying with the wrong person is even worse.

IV.

Qualifications hardly matter. Past experiences hardly matter.

What matters is teachability.

Some few people can be trained to be good at almost anything. Other people improve very little with training, no matter how much time you spend on them. But when you finally come across somebody who is teachable, hold onto them for dear life.

V.

Delegation is a fine line to walk between communicating your expectations clearly while building a relationship with the person you delegate to.

Many wannabe leaders act abrasive. They think being overly dominant is the way to inspire awe and respect when it really just leads to resentment.

But the other extreme is just as wrong. If you are not straightforward enough about what you expect people to do and then eventually lose your temper and just snap, your team will see you as dishonest. Your niceties were just fake. You kept nodding when you were already seething inside. That's the one I struggle with the most.

Delegation is hard. But it is key for defeating overwhelm. When you get it right, your ambitions and your output start to align. I've seen it in others and recently had a few glimpses of it myself. Don't revert to just doing it yourself. Keep at it until you finally get the hang of it.

Until next week,

Niels