If you struggle with time management, then you may want to start thinking about turkeys. Thanksgiving is less than five months away and you likely already know who will be cooking your turkey dinner. Analyzing some potential problems with this situation can help you learn to become more productive.
Odds are the same person who made the Thanksgiving meal last year will be preparing the food this year. Often, this is a family member, like a parent or grandparent.
This person has taken ownership of the meal for years and likes being in control of it. It?s a source of pride.
While this sounds perfectly harmonious, problems can emerge:
- The chef may be ready to pass on the duty to another family member but no one seems willing to step up the plate. They?ve gotten used to doing little to no work with the meal preparation and are not motivated to change. Even though the chef has lost enthusiasm for the task, he or she will continue to wear an apron on Thanksgiving. At times, the apron can feel like handcuffs. It?s not that the meal preparation is bad but it requires a lot of time and effort.
- Sometimes we see the flip side of this situation, where others may want to take over or be involved with the turkey dinner. Unfortunately, the chef refuses to allow anyone else to enter the kitchen. In the chef?s mind, no one else can perform the task as well as he or she can, even though all the preparation dominates the holiday and leads to mild exhaustion.
Let?s push away from the table and consider how this scenario applies to your workplace and time management. Think about what I call your Turkey Tasks. These are often nonessential tasks that only you perform on the job. You?ve done them for a long time.
We tend to hold on to processes or practices because we?ve gotten used to them. This doesn?t mean that we should still perform them.
Think about the Turkey Tasks you have been doing for years. Are you the only person who can perform that job? You may have moved up in seniority and are still doing a junior task. It may be convenient, easy, and something you enjoy, but do you have to do it?
There may be others who are eager to showcase their skills with these duties. While they may not be as talented as you, this may be a situation where the task doesn?t have to be perfect. It just has to be done by someone. Individual variations, like seasoning a meal, are mostly subjective.
In the big picture, does it hurt the organization if no one else knows how to do the task? This is a byproduct of your ownership. In this scenario, someone may need to be dragged into the metaphorical kitchen and pressed into duty.
It can be easy to hold onto familiar, yet low value tasks. The price of performing them is a loss of time that can be applied to your most important goals. Consider the benefits of delegating the duty or getting assistance. This is your time management victory.
There are lots of different ways to produce a Thanksgiving meal. Too often, we fail to consider our options.
