The phrase "it's my fault for leaving the work to someone" sounds arrogant and snide, so I don't like it — even when it stresses self-blame.
Still, that kind of thing happened to me recently.
On a project, I seriously poured myself into the core process that directly drives results.
Meanwhile, surrounding processes that support it — quality control, preparing materials, measuring numbers — I'd dumped entirely on collaborators.
Collaborators were overloaded too, and some parts went to less experienced people, so output got soft.
Busy as an excuse, I'd gotten used to taking the easy path.
Overall results matching expectations fed soft self-scoring.
Even when numbers looked fine, a vague anxiety was eating brain resources.
I have enough experience to keep the whole process somehow running — and that "it's running" comfort lowered my craft obsession with each step.
Worse: when other companies ask me about ops improvement, I often interview exactly these parts and advise loftily — so not doing it on my own project is embarrassing.
I reflected and decided to rebuild surrounding processes one by one.
For each process I found and negotiated with the right people, redesigned division of labor, and cleaned up the flow.
Result: quality improved as planned, each person's load dropped, and I got more time too.
A side insight: I could lose myself in that cleanup work itself.
Compared with other recent work, it was clearly fun enough to notice excitement.
To focus on what you're good at, don't just "leave the rest to someone" — design with your own hands who, what, and how to delegate.
Designing, moving your hands, and watching how it goes was as important — and as fun — as the processes I'm good at. A reminder I hadn't felt in a while.
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