Responsibility Drift

Here is a question that sounds like a complaint but is actually a structural observation: why does your workload only ever grow? Not in bad weeks — that’s

Think about the last time a new responsibility landed on you. There was a path for it. Someone asked, or a gap appeared, or a project needed an

Try to answer a simple question. Where does your job end? Not your title — your actual job. The set of things that are yours to own, past

Listen to the word you reach for when the week is crushing you. Overloaded. Buried, swamped, maxed out, too much on the plate. Every one of those words

You delegated the thing. You were clear about it. You handed it to someone capable, you said the words, you even felt the small relief of it leaving

There is a person on every team who can be handed almost anything and it lands. You know who they are on your team. There’s a reasonable chance

You said no to a committee assignment on Tuesday. By Friday, a “collaborative initiative” appeared that was structurally identical but framed differently enough that declining felt petty. Same

You said no to a project last week. This week, a slightly different version of the same project appeared — framed as an “opportunity” instead of a request,

You remember the project that was supposed to be a one-time favor. Eighteen months later, you own the entire workstream. Nobody asked. Nobody discussed expanding your scope. They

“I can take a look.” “I’ll check on it.” “I’ll follow up.” You’ve said those sentences a hundred times. None of them assign responsibility. All of them absorb