In an episode of Organize365, Jacqui Ioli was a guest.
She and Lisa discussed the “Hot Mess theory”.
This was a concept Jacqui had developed while supervising outpatient nurses.
There were four situations that led to the Hot Mess:
- Overwork – This occurs when there is too much work and too many steps. Sometimes we create this for ourselves and other times this can be created by poor management from the top.
- Underwork – This is where you spend time doing work that is below your skill level. In these situations, you need to streamline things – hand off and delegate. By not delegating, you are both underworking and overworking.
- Rework – This is when you must redo work because it wasn’t done right the first time.
- Workarounds – These are needed when there isn’t a good process, or you veer off the process.
My Perspective
I see these situations crop up for myself and many people I work with.
What was interesting to think about was the relationship between the four.
Paired together they can create a vicious cycle.
The overwork/underwork cycle is easy to get into.
We are under the false premise that it will be easier to just do something ourselves instead of delegating to someone else.
Workarounds are an interesting one.
I think we get so used to our workarounds that we don’t even think about alternative processes.
Likely if we spent a little time on a new system, we would save ourselves countless hours in the future.
Your Turn
Do you have times when you are underworking?
What causes you to overwork?
How frequently are you reworking something?
Are there processes in your daily routine where you always do a workaround?
Could you resolve it?