What would you do if I weren't here?

Nudge people to figure out how they'd do things in your absence

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that if you seem to be carrying more
of the organizational weight in various situations, consider what would

(00:24):
happen if you weren't there, and prompt the other people
involved to take a little more of the initiative. After all,
in many cases we can't always be there, so it
is good to figure this out when it is not
a crisis. I know that Before Breakfast listeners are productive

(00:46):
and dependable sorts. That means that people often look to
you to manage situations, deal with logistics, and organize everything,
which can be fine, But if you are and with
is a little limited, you might nicely nudge people to
figure out how to handle things without you. For instance,

(01:09):
maybe you have been organizing the holiday lunch at your
office for the last few years. People will expect you
to do it all again. But maybe you are out
on maternity leave four years ago over the holidays and
something happened there was some holiday celebration. This is within
institutional memory, so you could ask people what they did

(01:32):
then and then just suggest it get repeated or perhaps
your crew of teens and preteens has gotten a little
too dependent on you nudging them along in the morning.
You could ask what they would do if you weren't
there and help them set up alarms or other reminders
to make that same schedule happen. Indeed, maybe you could

(01:55):
be gone some morning early to give it a trial run.
Even little kids can sometimes be nudged to take the initiative.
Your five year old asks you to get him water,
You ask what he would do if you weren't there,
and he remembers that the kid friendly cups, bowls, and
plates are in a drawer he can reach, and he

(02:18):
can turn on the sink by himself in the bathroom
or use a step stool in the kitchen to reach
that one. Now, obviously, in many situations we get help
from others, and we help each other out too, But
in general, in any organization or family, it is good
to figure out how systems would run if one person

(02:40):
was absent. If you were very sick for a while,
your family would have to figure something out. Your workplace
would need to figure something out too, So sometimes it
is good to think through scenarios when it is not
a crisis. And to make all systems a little more resilient.

(03:04):
In the meantime, This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,

(03:25):
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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