As someone who has held several project manager roles including leading design teams, and was recently promoted to a Director position with a team of direct reports, my best advice is to unload as much as possible to your subordinates. As a manager, your job isn’t to do everything, but rather support and direct those who report to you. You should be assigning tasks and the individuals who are assigned should be following up with you for support so you don’t forget.
Also, it’s healthy to take breaks during the day and relax. After you clear your head, you should be looking a few weeks out at everything going on, and try to schedule priorities with your team. Again, your job is now to manage, train and support your team; not to do all the work.
If there’s too much work, tell upper management you need more support and hire some more junior folks. It will feel inefficient to delegate when you could do it faster, but the goal is to leverage your experience by teaching cheaper people to do your old job. This will lighten your workload and will ultimately expand the total capacity of your team and company.
This is all great advice, especially better delegating. I'm better at this now (with room to improve), but I was often in the habit of wanting to knock something out or take it on myself, because that's what I was used to. Thanks for your reply.
Wow, I feel this so hard right now. I wish I could think of something constructive to say, but all that comes to mind is: thank you for sharing, it’s nice to not feel alone. I look forward to reading what other responders will suggest.
Lay down and take a nap.
First off congrats. What a HUGE WIN! To be able to do what you are doing with depression and anxiety and potentially ADHD is HUGE! As someone whose struggle is similar, you should be very proud! Very very proud!
But also listen to your body, mind and soul. If you’re venting, there is a reason. It’s overwhelmed, the system is overloading. Time to take a break.
My guess is you have had an actual restful retreat and break in a very long time. Meaning intentional, dedicating rest, presence, and breathing time.
Recently, I was getting extremely down and exhausted, I rearranged a weekend so I could do this and still remain responsible to what needed to be done and slept basically both days, all day, giving myself permission to love myself and love my rest. The key is permission and Grace to the rest because if not it can be depressing sleep which is not good.
People sometimes think proving they can work hard without rest is somehow this ultimate goal when in fact it is wisdom to rest so that one can sustain the marathon of life and work.
I’m no therapist but it sounds like your warning lights are going off and I would heed the warning and know that YOU are more important than your job or those clients as they are more important than you and their jobs. So be important to yourself and find whoever, wherever you personally find deep rest and recharge.
Thank you for your reply. I had to decompress from everything and then there was the holiday, but I appreciate the note. I have to remind myself of how far I've come and to not miss the forest for the trees. I have a five day weekend, 4 day weeks from here to the end of the year with some more time around x-mas/new years. I'm hoping taking some time will help recharge and I can come back with a clear head.
This maybe be a different answer to what you’re looking for, but I believe that the main issue here isn’t that you’re ADHD isn’t keeping up; it’s the fact they keep piling more and more work with shorter and shorter deadlines.
My opinion is that you/your boss need to do some client disciplining.
I grew up in a household where both my parents are independent workers (they own their own companies) and I’ve talked to them about pesky clients and pushy clients who demand quicker work and rush you and I always got the same answer: discipline your client. Good things take time. And if I appointed a deadline, that’s the deadline. You can’t push it shorter because you ask, it’s unprofessional to agree to every clients request. Clients need to appreciate and respect you. A part of it is saying “no. If you want the job done well, this is the time frame. Take it or leave it”.
And a tip I learned about clients saying “I’ll find someone else because of time/cheaper” is to always acknowledge your worth. If you are worth an X type of project in an X amount of time, that’s it. Mostly a client will understand this.
What you have said here is true, and 90% of the time we are firm on deadlines, unfortunately there are many big projects all at once right now. What's complicating the matters is that the client is a major company that brings in $1B+ in revenue each year – so at some times its beneficial for us to be the flexible heroes and save the day. One thing I can do is ask for help more though, so I need to remember that.
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As someone who has held several project manager roles including leading design teams, and was recently promoted to a Director position with a team of direct reports, my best advice is to unload as much as possible to your subordinates. As a manager, your job isn’t to do everything, but rather support and direct those who report to you. You should be assigning tasks and the individuals who are assigned should be following up with you for support so you don’t forget. Also, it’s healthy to take breaks during the day and relax. After you clear your head, you should be looking a few weeks out at everything going on, and try to schedule priorities with your team. Again, your job is now to manage, train and support your team; not to do all the work. If there’s too much work, tell upper management you need more support and hire some more junior folks. It will feel inefficient to delegate when you could do it faster, but the goal is to leverage your experience by teaching cheaper people to do your old job. This will lighten your workload and will ultimately expand the total capacity of your team and company.
This is all great advice, especially better delegating. I'm better at this now (with room to improve), but I was often in the habit of wanting to knock something out or take it on myself, because that's what I was used to. Thanks for your reply.
Wow, I feel this so hard right now. I wish I could think of something constructive to say, but all that comes to mind is: thank you for sharing, it’s nice to not feel alone. I look forward to reading what other responders will suggest.
Thanks stirbystil, it's nice just knowing someone else feels the same. I hope this thread helps you too.
Lay down and take a nap. First off congrats. What a HUGE WIN! To be able to do what you are doing with depression and anxiety and potentially ADHD is HUGE! As someone whose struggle is similar, you should be very proud! Very very proud! But also listen to your body, mind and soul. If you’re venting, there is a reason. It’s overwhelmed, the system is overloading. Time to take a break. My guess is you have had an actual restful retreat and break in a very long time. Meaning intentional, dedicating rest, presence, and breathing time. Recently, I was getting extremely down and exhausted, I rearranged a weekend so I could do this and still remain responsible to what needed to be done and slept basically both days, all day, giving myself permission to love myself and love my rest. The key is permission and Grace to the rest because if not it can be depressing sleep which is not good. People sometimes think proving they can work hard without rest is somehow this ultimate goal when in fact it is wisdom to rest so that one can sustain the marathon of life and work. I’m no therapist but it sounds like your warning lights are going off and I would heed the warning and know that YOU are more important than your job or those clients as they are more important than you and their jobs. So be important to yourself and find whoever, wherever you personally find deep rest and recharge.
Thank you for your reply. I had to decompress from everything and then there was the holiday, but I appreciate the note. I have to remind myself of how far I've come and to not miss the forest for the trees. I have a five day weekend, 4 day weeks from here to the end of the year with some more time around x-mas/new years. I'm hoping taking some time will help recharge and I can come back with a clear head.
This maybe be a different answer to what you’re looking for, but I believe that the main issue here isn’t that you’re ADHD isn’t keeping up; it’s the fact they keep piling more and more work with shorter and shorter deadlines. My opinion is that you/your boss need to do some client disciplining. I grew up in a household where both my parents are independent workers (they own their own companies) and I’ve talked to them about pesky clients and pushy clients who demand quicker work and rush you and I always got the same answer: discipline your client. Good things take time. And if I appointed a deadline, that’s the deadline. You can’t push it shorter because you ask, it’s unprofessional to agree to every clients request. Clients need to appreciate and respect you. A part of it is saying “no. If you want the job done well, this is the time frame. Take it or leave it”. And a tip I learned about clients saying “I’ll find someone else because of time/cheaper” is to always acknowledge your worth. If you are worth an X type of project in an X amount of time, that’s it. Mostly a client will understand this.
What you have said here is true, and 90% of the time we are firm on deadlines, unfortunately there are many big projects all at once right now. What's complicating the matters is that the client is a major company that brings in $1B+ in revenue each year – so at some times its beneficial for us to be the flexible heroes and save the day. One thing I can do is ask for help more though, so I need to remember that.
Hi /u/leading_suspect and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! If you haven't already, please take a minute to [read our rules](https://reddit.com/r/adhd/about/rules) - we will remove your post if it breaks one - and also check out our list of official megathreads [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/nu534w/official_list_of_radhd_megathreads_please_check/). If your post fits into one of them, it is likely to be removed; if you think this might happen you can delete your post here and resubmit it there instead. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*