Do It Yourself!

I'll do it!

Have you ever assigned a task to someone only to find out later it’s something you should have done yourself?  I find myself wondering that so many times.  Funny thing is is that I assume that the other person understands my instructions.  I don’t want to give too much detail because I want to give the other person a chance to use their imagination to accomplish the task.

Funny thing is, even when I provide step-by-step details, the person still doesn’t get the task right or at least not up to my expectations.  I think, ‘are my expectations too high?’.  Then I think again, ‘no’.  When I ask someone to clean the kitchen, I expect it to be as tidy as possible without having to bust out a toothbrush.

What I think is that most people just don’t take ownership and don’t take accountability for what they do or what they are assigned to do.  It’s sad really.  When you add this lack of ownership on top of high expectations, there is a real let down there.  This is life I guess.

If I really want something done right, I’ll have to do it myself.

I’d like to be able to depend on family and friends, but everyone is too freakin busy.  I might get some type of help, but the level of effort on their part is usually low to medium.  Maybe I need to try to set expectations when I ask for help and if I can’t get a commitment, then I should just say, ‘no problem’.

There are times when the instruction I give is longer than the task itself.  It could take me 5 minutes to explain what I want, but only 2 seconds for me to do it myself.  Sad.

What would you do?

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