It’s all gone crazy

It’s all gone crazy.  There used to be a time when I could decide to get involved in this and that, go to this meeting and that meeting but not anymore.  Now it is more a question of having to go to this meeting or that meeting or even that meeting.  I am being stretched across too many requirements.

I used to be able to delegate some meetings to my team.  But now they are in the same boat, having to make the same sort of choices.  What used to be a question of could and should is now a question of should or must.  Which things must I go to?

Part of the answer is by asking where I can best use the skills I have.  I do have some.  There are also things that I am not so good at.  I should avoid meetings where those are what is required. I get that, but then some meetings are like gateways.  In order to get where I want to be I have to go to this meeting to be invited to the next.  This is more of a challenge as I have to understand the objectives in the first place and work out the best route to get there.  It is a corporate snakes and ladders. Sometimes you throw the wrong numbers.

So life is not always that simple. Somehow I need to project into the future, be clear about where I want to end up and follow the ladder up the board while avoiding the snakes.  I can look through my diary and agree to stop going here or there but that is not the real trick.  What I need to do is to get it straight in my mind why I spend my time as I do.  Why do I go to the meetings I do?  As I said to one of my colleagues once, ‘Why do you go to meetings you don’t know why you go to?’