A lot of life is about setting priorities. What things are important enough for your attention and which simply need to fall in the “nice to do, but never gonna happen” category. In a perfect world, these priorities would be balanced and when one was finished, one would begin. In reality those priorities almost always conflict with one another and compete for status as the first among equals.

Priorities have been my issue lately, or more specifically, having (or being told to have) to many of them has been my issue. From the purely intellectual point of view, it’s easy to understand that some things are more important than others. And sometimes many important things happen at once. Frederick the Great is believed to have said, “He who defends everything, defends nothing.” Put another way, when everything is your #1 priority, nothing is ever treated like #1.

I’ve got broad enough shoulders to handle anything that gets thrown at me. I can shift gears on the fly and very rarely get intimidated by issues or people, no matter how ponderous they may be. I can do a great many things with a high degree of skill and certainty that they’re going to get done right. The only thing I can’t do is take care of them all at once.  Having ten major projects open and (theoretically) running at a time is not a recipe for success when you assign them to .73% of the staff – yes that is ¾ of one percent. It is, however, a recipe for getting alot of long-term projects completely derailed for the sake of defusing a few short-term crises.

With that said, effective immediately, I’m requesting a change in my official designation to:

Chief of PowerPoint Operations, Questionable Metrics, Random Tasks, and Odd Jobs; Defender of the Sacred Website; Keeper of the Institutional History; Builder of the Mighty Quadcharts; High Executor of Monthly Reports; and Unquestioned Lord of Other Duties as Assigned.

Yes, I think that will do nicely… Now to order new business cards.