Are you in the wrong job? Perhaps completely the wrong career? Maybe you feel like you waste a lot of time on the wrong things? Then you’re probably working outside of where you’re most happy and most effective; outside of your flow.
We’re all different – even in a small team like ours, we all have different personalities that affect the way we do our jobs and how we get success.
You might be a great salesperson a hit targets by bringing in new clients, or you might make your money by looking after your existing portfolio and upselling or renewing contracts.
Perhaps you prefer administration but hate it when the phone rings, taking your attention away from your spreadsheets. Or maybe you’re the other way around – any excuse to get away from all those numbers!
That thing that you’re happy to spend your entire day working in – we all have one and know what it is – is what’s in your flow. So how much of your day do you spend on it?
20%? 50%? More?
You’ll find most success where you’re working on the thing you’re most suited for. So how can you streamline what you at work?
The simplest way is to delegate as much as you can to pass those duties you can’t stand to someone else.
Let’s say you’re a sales manager who has progressed to lead the team you once were very successful working in yourself. You love the hands-on side of your role, dealing with big clients and motivating your team. But come the end of the month, you’ve got no patience for compiling and analysing the sales figures and can feel like quitting your job to go back to making sales. Looking at those figures is outside of your flow, so why not delegate it out to an administrator? They’ll probably do a much better job anyway, because it’s more likely to be in their flow too.
But not all of us are lucky enough to be able to tell their colleagues what to do. So what happens when you’re at the mercy of your boss? You might be lucky and be able to share out duties with a co-worker who does the same role so you each focus on your favourite aspects of the role. But you can’t always pass on the things you don’t like to do to someone else.
In larger companies, job descriptions and responsibilities are often very specific and inflexible. In these instances, if your job doesn’t fit with what you enjoy, you may be better off switching roles. Thankfully, sideways career moves into other departments or teams are often a bit easier in bigger businesses.
In a small business, you might be the only one there to do the job. However, you’ve probably got a much better relationship with the person who makes decisions about organisational structure and who does what. They may be quite keen to hear that there are things you want to focus on to make yourself more productive. At the end of the day, they’ll want to get their money’s worth out of your monthly wages!
And even if a request can’t be accommodated straight away, an understanding boss will look into making some changes in the future.
But if your boss won’t make a change for you, perhaps you need to think about changing things yourself and looking for a new role.
