Wrong decisions will hurt work and home lives | Jan 15th 2007
By Jacqueline Dooley
As a business owner and a mom, I’m constantly faced with an ever-present barrage of decisions. The start of the workweek brings with it a host of small decisions that, if made poorly, can snowball into large problems.
What I choose to do on Monday morning will inevitably affect how much spare time I’ll have to spend with my kids, whether or not I’ll have any downtime and my frame of mind during the coming week.
My very first decision on Monday morning involves my to-do list. Should I read my e-mail or polish off a deadline before I get too involved with non-billable work? Even though I know the productive choice would be to work on the deadline, I decide on the e-mail, which is undoubtedly a poor choice.
I can always finish the deadline after I work on e-mail for a couple of hours, right?
Wrong.
It’s 10:30 a.m. and I’ve told my husband he can take a shower at this time while I watch our daughter. So, it’s downstairs for a 20-minute break, which actually turns into a 50-minute break. By the time I get back to my desk, it’s nearly noon.
Now, not only have I not started on my deadline, but I also forgot that I had a report due by the end of the day. Everything gets pushed aside for this second deadline (a decision that takes me only a moment to make).
The report will take me three to four hours to complete, but I’ve planned to leave at 3:30 because I have to take both my girls to the pediatrician by 4 p.m. At 2:45 I’m only halfway done with my report.
Should I ask my husband to take the girls to the doctor without me, so that I can finish the report?
I ultimately decide against it, even though I know he’s more than capable of handling it. At 3:30 I send an e-mail to my client indicating I’ll have the report to them later in the evening and thus I’ve committed myself to working after the girls are in bed. Oh, and I still haven’t begun to work on my first deadline yet.
There are consequences
I’ve lost my free time for the evening because I chose to read my e-mail in the morning instead of working on my first deadline. That simple, self-indulgent decision will likely have repercussions for the entire week in the form of delayed deadlines, annoyed clients and stress that bleeds into my home life and affects everyone.
No matter how many decisions I make, or how good I think I get at it, there’s always the potential to make a really bad one. A couple of weeks ago I chose not to give my 2-year-old antibiotics for an ear infection because it was so difficult (an understatement) to get her to take the medicine. The pediatrician wasn’t sure she had an infection at all because she couldn’t see the ear drum, so I thought we could wait it out.
It was the wrong decision. Her ear drum ruptured a week later (she’ll be fine — she’s since taken antibiotics and ear drums typically heal on their own).
When it comes down to it, parenting decisions are way bigger than business decisions — at least in my experience. They help me put the so-called important decisions into perspective so I don’t become too obsessive. They also make me realize that even the smallest decisions can have a very big impact not just on myself, but on the people I care most about.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, January 13th, 2007.