DATED – 12th December 2016

Ever since our twins were born on 19^th July 2016, life has been a series of juggle. Rest everything remained same, but these two bundles of joy were definitely going to demand time from the routine.

Things moved well with sleepless nights, but the kids settled. One of those days, post lunch I was chatting with Arpita’s mother. That week had been a little hectic for me; especially because I wanted to do everything – I wanted to work full day at office, socialise, meet friends for dinner, take kids to their doctor, sleep over with kids, buy things for kids, pick up my parents from airport and finally plan for a seminar. My mother-in-law calmly told me – “Amitkumar, you can’t reach everywhere. Delegate work, else your health will take a toll. You will not realise now, but in future. Even I wanted to do everything when I was young. But now I am having blood pressure issues. Just relax and delegate.”

Though the conversation happened a good two months ago, yet it is fresh in my mind. She made tremendous sense. Sometimes, in excitement, we overcommit and want to overdo things. We want to be everywhere and do everything. We don’t want to let go –

• As a businessman, you want to look into purchases, sales, accounts, HR and all the possible roles in your business
• You want to sell lots of things, thinking that customer should not go anywhere else
• You have a huge family. You want to be available in each and every function – big or small
• As a woman in the house, you want to do every possible work thinking when I can do it, why give it to someone else. They can’t do as well as me
• When you go for a marriage reception, you want to eat everything available on the menu
• As a chef you wish to master all possible dishes in the world
• Though convenient cab services are available, you personally want to pick/drop people from/to the airport thinking they will feel bad
• Just because your child does not decide things for themselves yet, you pack their days with innumerable activities
• As a professional, you don’t narrow down on the skills you need to hone and keep adding more variety of skills for future

I think there are only two solutions possible for these kinds of situations –

1. Delegate – If we objectively look at situations from a third person perspective, you will realise that you can have someone else do it. So often when you think from your perspective, the mind will give enough reason not to delegate like – there aren’t any reliable people; it adds to my costs and lessens profits; delegating will lead to dip in results; I am hale and hearty, so no need to delegate.
2. Sacrifice – Though you would love to do things all that you can do, yet you will have to sacrifice certain things. You will need to prioritise. You have only so many hours a day. At one point in life, if you don’t prioritise, you will either strain relationships or your health will take a toll. Enemies like acidity, blood pressure, cardiac issues, diabetes, joint problems, etc. will become your friends.

Vis-à-vis my life –

I am usually proud of myself that I delegate things well. But after this incident, I have begun re-looking at myself. I realised that there is scope of improvement. Sometimes I don’t delegate/sacrifice purely due to emotions, which is totally uncalled for.

The energy reserves are limited in you and me. The more fruitfully I utilise it, the more I will be able to do and hence achieve. Uncalled things are wasteful and lead to energy drain. If at the end of the day you feel like you have done a lot or had a busy day, but nothing much to talk about – you need to etch this – ‘you can’t reach everywhere…’