Ok, I might as well go first: I wish I could draw. Not at the level where I could make photorealistic portraits, but I’ve always been envious of those who are able to scetch something together in a few minutes that perfectly captures what they want to convey. Sometimes words aren’t enough to express what I want to say, and for those situations I would love to have a simple drawing do the talking for me.
Change your mindset. Decide to put more effort into your personal life than you do work. Don’t burn all your fuel for a workplace that doesn’t care if you live or die.
I’m actually working on switching to a different team where I won’t have to manage anyone else. I’m hoping that fixes some of it because a lot of the people I’m in charge of require a lot of baby sitting and my team is 24/7. Im already trying to lower the amount of effort I put in but if I do much less it makes things worse for my coworkers. I don’t really care about the company beyond not getting fired but I do not want to create problems for my coworkers.
Sometimes you have to let people struggle. Managing people means delegating tasks. When I was training to be a McDonald’s shift manger in my early 20’s one of the training videos said that you should run a shift with your hands in your pockets. What they meant was that you needed to shift your mindset from being a crew member to a manger. You will never get any of your own work done because you will be focused on helping the other crew members with their tasks rather than focusing on the big picture.
I do understand that. The problem is that my boss doesn’t and when my team fails to deliver something I’m answerable for it. On top of that the company as a whole makes it a pain in the ass to replace people if I fire them so it takes months to get someone new up to speed. It’s a no win situation which is why I’m so stressed out all the time.
You just need to manage your bosses expectations better. If they say they want it done by the end of the week, then you need to tell them that it’s not possible and you can get it done by the end of the month.
The expectations are based off known metrics of what we can accomplish based off years of data. The high performers on my team consistently double the output that is expected of them while also handling escalation of more difficult issues. I can’t just tell them to lower their expectations because the only thing that’s changed is the people doing the work.