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NonsenseAtWork

What Thing Undone Has You Hot and Bothered?

Published 9 days ago • 1 min read

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What Thing Undone Has You Hot and Bothered?

Trigger Question #129

“I can fool some of the people some of the time, but I struggle to fool myself any of the time.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.

If you don’t do what you committed to do, you will feel hot and bothered. And the longer you put it off, the longer it bothers you, the hotter you will get.

Now, if you’re like me, you’ll put on your shrug-face, the one that shows you believe procrastination is part of being human. Even though, like me, you know a shrug does not get rid of the feeling that you should have by now and you really still ought to.

Being human also means we can often fool other people, but never ourselves. And there you have the really tricky aspect of being human, the one that totally messes with you. That feeling of should-have.

Once you have made a commitment, you risk the feeling of should-have. It does not matter who knows about your commitment. It could be your boss, your partner, your colleague, whoever. The setup is always the same: in making a commitment to others, you have made a commitment to yourself. And you are the one person you cannot shrug off with a casual, “Sorry!”

The way out is to use your hot and bothered-ness as a thermometer:

  • If the reading is high, do what you’ve left undone. Now.
  • If the reading is low, decide if the undone thing still matters. If it does not, shrug it off. But first, tell those affected that you are about to shrug.

(What if commitments undone don’t get you hot and bothered? What if you are the one person you can fool, the one person you can shrug off easily? Then what? Then I suggest you run for political office.)

Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.

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I boost careers by helping people deal with the nonsense of pleasing a boss, playing nice with colleagues, making subordinates productive, and living a life. Read more​

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NonsenseAtWork

James McIntosh - Boosting Careers since 1990

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