HACKER Q&A
📣 XWZNRFYK

How do you say “No” when you're the right person for the job?


I'm very much a jack of all trades, working as a Product Manager which is the job I didn't know I wanted until I got it.

What I like most is the variety of responsibilities I have. I'm better at doing a large number of things than a large number of people are at doing those things. I'm not amazing at anything except that. I can learn quickly to do something up to a relatively high standard.

I'm passionate about doing things right and when people ask me to help them on X and Y, I genuinely want to because I think/know that I'll do a good job, even if it's outside my normal tasks.

Sometimes I feel like there is no one else I'd trust to do those tasks right and I feel like that may be the main problem. I like helping people too obviously.

So at the end of the day I find myself genuinely thinking that all the things I'm working on should be on my shoulders. In reality I get burnt out because the things that matter to me don't move enough, I just don't realize it in the moment.

Are there any tricks to figuring out on the spot whether you should take on a task or not?

My title is a bit of lie, it should read "when you think you're the right person"..


  👤 JMTQp8lwXL Accepted Answer ✓
> Sometimes I feel like there is no one else I'd trust to do those tasks right and I feel like that may be the main problem.

Delegate small things to others. Build trust. Delegate larger things. Depending on where you sit in your organization, doing everything yourself will not scale. Your colleagues, at some point, will need to execute on your behalf.