Paralyzed by Overcommitment

Photo: Ed Tarwinski

This web site has been poorly tended to for the past couple of months. Part of the problem was the de-listing by Google. That took more wind out of my sails than I believed it would. Apparently, I am more of an attention whore than my self-image had reflected previously.

In my head, the original reasons for starting this site still held. I had a thought or an idea or something I wanted to share or remember for later, so I'd write it up and put it here, regardless if anyone ever read it. However, somehow over the last several years, it seems that it matters to me in some way that there is someone out there to read it.

Regardless, that's something I either just need to change my thinking on or something I need to come to grips with and is only one of the reasons for the relative silence over the last couple of months. In fact, that's probably one of the lesser factors.

The biggest factor by far is a paralysis brought on by overcommitment. I can clearly point to this element being the leader of the pack because of a common situation that has come up at some point during every post I've started to write (and there are currently 23 drafts for this site).

See, I have WAY too many things going on where people are counting on me. Some are paid projects; some are just things people have asked me to do. I ended up committed to each as a gradual process. They stacked up, in some cases, by lying dormant while additional commitments were stacked on top.

At this point, there are at least a dozen people who are more than a little concerned with how I'm spending my time. They are all likely to ask me at some point in the next few days whether I'm done with the object of their concern and if not, how much longer it will take. Unfortunately, keeping all of those project moving forward pretty much means that none of them move very far.

And so, I've been frantically attempting to keep juggling all of the balls without dropping any. However, I won't pretend that there haven't been a few close calls.

Knowing that the crowd of people waiting on me is out there dominates my thoughts every time I sit down to write for this site. That knowledge fills my head every time I do something other than work on the list or sleep. I think about it every time I so much as glance at my own list of projects.

This past week, I crossed a line when I felt bad for taking the time to make dinner. I fully realize that 99% of the people I'm beholden to wouldn't begrudge me that task, but the fact that my own guilt kicked in says that something needs to change.

So, I started looking for those things that I'm juggling that bounce or can be set down. I'm handing off one of my projects to another web guy as a subcontractor, and with the others, I'm having frank conversations about my capacity and how it relates to their need.

In those conversations I've had so far, the real people were far more understanding than my imaginary projections of them (I apologize for not thinking of you as highly as I clearly should). In at least one case, they weren't nearly in as big of a hurry as I thought they were.

Things are starting to loosen, which is important. It's not because I want more time to write (though I do) or because I've got a list of personal projects a mile long (though I do). Rather, it's actually because of the very things that people hire me for. People hire me because I solve problems in unique and practical ways. However, when I'm working beyond capacity, I don't do that nearly as well as when I am keeping things in balance.

Here's to getting things back in balance. Cheers.