Each year, as we head into our busiest season at work, I choose a word or phrase that reflects the focus for my organization. I target something with a basic meaning that the entire team, no matter what position or role, can ground themselves in as the work days get longer and the stress gets a bit higher.
This year, I have been thinking about 'deliberate':
1: characterized by or resulting from careful and through considerations.
2: characterized by awareness of the consequences.
3: slow, unhurried, and steady as though allowing time for decision on each individual action involved.
Too often, our actions are not deliberate. In haste, due to pressure, because of apathy or just out of habit, we answer questions, perform tasks, and react without taking pause or giving the due attention required...in more instances than we'd like to admit, this is when mistakes and errors (of all shapes and sizes) are made.
So deliberate is a great word to share with my team...deliberate actions, deliberate thoughts, deliberately deliberating...the errors made, not from lack of knowledge but due to lack of focus, will be all but eradicated.
But then I burned my pasta.
It's a simple activity boiling pasta. I threw in some ziti, set the timer, and used that 11 minutes to get some paperwork done. Then I realized the 11 minutes had come and gone, yelled for my husband to take the pan off the stove, and then heard the dreaded call from the kitchen 'IT'S BURNING!' I now have a pan to clean and no lunch. I also had a minor twinge of frustration that my husband didn't hear the timer and pulled my pasta before it boiled dry...
I'll stop there for self analysis. I remember hearing the timer go off. I also remember ignoring it assuming that in a few seconds I could be done with my paperwork and would have multitasked away one chore for the day. My husband wasn't even in the kitchen.
This was not an example of being deliberate. And I became painfully aware that it's not as easy as it sounds. I pride myself on being a successful multitasker and quick and instinctual thinker, but as I thought about the pasta, all the instances of mistakes made doing simple tasks came flooding in...a assumption about an email, a quick reaction (that turned out to be way off base), any number of burnt grilled cheese sandwiches and batches of cookies and toast pushed down for one second more (and the list goes on and on)...
So this week, before I pass along this great word, I need to test my own fortitude. For those of you who know me, call me out on it. For the rest of you, call out yourself, and let me know what mistakes you don't make.
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