Keeping commitments is a major factor in trustworthiness and accountability. It can be described as “Doing what you said you would do.”
And then there is committing. You can do anything, but not everything. Some signs of over committing are:
-not keeping your commitments (duh);
-being grouchy or hard to be around;
-not enjoying what you are dealing with;
-neglecting important people (like family) or activities (like exercise);
-spending the whole weekend catching up on the work you couldn’t get to during the week;
-not doing the work only you can do ’cause you are doing other people’s work…..
Shall I go on?
Yes, I know in some way this is all of us, but don’t use that as an excuse. As humans, we are so tempted to justify our bad behavior by pointing at someone else we know who gets away with it. My classic whine from my childhood was “But you let Joe do it!” (my older brother). Poor Joe, I got away with a lot more than he did. Don’t feel sorry for him. He was very good at pointing this out to Mom.
Speaking of which, whining and pointing fingers just makes you look weak. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t get you anywhere either.
Here are some ways to address the issue:
Delegate. If you are able to, delegate everything that you aren’t good at. Especially when there are people within your organization who are extremely good at it or need new challenges to grow.
Don’t take the monkey back. Read Who’s got the monkey?
Say no. If you don’t say no to the lower priority activities, you can’t say yes to what will bring you and your company value. Get clear on where you bring value and what brings you joy, or meets your goals. Do you know what those are? If not, start there.
Get more sleep. Take a vacation from Facebook, email, late night television and get a half hour more sleep each night.
Block out time on your calendar to spend time doing what is important and stick to it. You don”t have to be perfect; you do need to get better.
Photo courtesy of drivetime.com