Women at work and their tips, challenges, advice, complaints, and experiences

How many of you Workerettes are feeling just a weeee bit overwhelmed from time to time?  I thought of the perfect analogy, if you're old enough to recall the following tool.

Remember when libraries had card catalogs that had little drawers full of actual cards?  Those drawers were alphabetized, and the cards inside them were alphabetized as well.

And they were removable. 

Which meant it was a real horror when some poor fool pulled a drawer out way too fast and *gasp!* dumped it, creating a lovely fountain of cards that bounced halfway across the floor and created a pool of titles scattered hither and yon.

Everyone would freeze at that point, most especially the person who committed the crime - now not only unable to find the book they were looking for, but also utterly overwhelmed by the daunting task a librarian might cast upon them.  EEK!

Doesn't it feel like you've pulled the drawer out sometimes, and the librarian has set her talons on your shoulder and directed you to pick up the cards, take them to the table, and start replacing them?  (Though smart librarians didn't bother, knowing that the drawer would be all screwy anyway.)  Some folks would stick them in willy-nilly, others would sit for hours until every card was in its place - and the really efficient folks would do their best, then proclaim the project "good enough" and hand over the drawer to the librarian with an apology and a lesson on slower drawer pulling.  For the ones who agonized over the task for ages, it would almost have been more worth it to just throw the whole pile in the trash, since they felt no effort was "good enough"; the completed job wasn't perfect.

Lately I've been feeling as though I dropped not one, not two, but about a half dozen drawers.  Why?  Well, other than the multitude of projects in front of me (hellllooo moving, newborn, homeschooling, freelancing - the list goes on!), I realized a few days ago that I am way too involved in making "to-do" lists and setting goals for myself.  It's time to trash the extra tasks, consolidate projects, and do what can feasibly be done.

Last week I despondently thought, I CAN'T DO IT ALL!  I can't even do HALF of it!  I'm just not good enough!

Then the thought hit me: DUH!  Why am I trying to do it "all", when "all" of it is way too much for one person with less on her plate, let alone this much?  Would I charge an employee with this many projects at once?  NO!  So why am I, as my own boss, treating my only employee this way?  I get frustrated with my six-year-old when she cries because a picture she drew isn't "perfect"; the child draws better than I do as an adult!  So why do I expect perfection of myself? 

I've resolved to try to be a better boss and set my best (okay, my only) employee up for success.  Her efforts are truly good enough when I don't expect more of her than she is capable of handling right now! 

I've only been able to accomplish 3 - 4 things on my to-do lists each day, so why make them 12 items long and drop into bed exhausted, seething about not completing the list?  Why not make a list with THREE items on it, and then add on what else I happen to accomplish to make myself see how much I really do in a day?  Hmmmm?

I bet you're doing "good enough" too.  We just have to see it in the right light. 

And guess what?  Writing THIS POST was on my to-do list for today.  Do you think it's good enough?