On an unusually introspective day, I read this article. It led me to thinking about this in the context of my life. I am a bit of a perfectionist. I don’t always succeed in perfection, but I am always striving to do my best. It’s what, arguably has made me a good PM over the years, because I never wanted to do ‘less than’. The concept that you do ‘enough’ rather than everything is totally alien to me.

There’s an internal juxtaposition though, despite my love of all things perfect, the last 18 months have most definitely taught me that the world isn’t perfect and I need to operate within it.

I know that there are some moments where I need to let perfection slip away in order to maintain some semblance of control over the overwhelming tide of things headed my way. I suspect that most PM’s over the last year and a half feel like they are slowly drowning in a tide of rules, regulation, guidance, exhausted staff and unhappy patients. And things are not improving, if anything, it is getting worse.

I like to think I’m pretty organised and good with deadlines, but the sand has been shifting under my feet more quickly than I could ever have anticipated. So, I know that I need to let some things slide in order to maintain some sanity. How do I decide what?

Almost like the answer to a prayer, a friend sent me this. This is an analogy I can work with. Almost everything in my life now gets allocated rubber ball or glass ball status. Rubber ball – I can drop that one, no problem. Glass ball, handle with extreme care and drop at your peril!

I once attended a time management course (can you see a theme?) where they recommended a 1-4 A-D scale for importance and deadlines. Anything low importance gets dropped, and so on. I spent so much time trying to categorise whether things were important and time sensitive that a whole load more of my to-do list had become time sensitive while I tried to work out what I could afford to drop. Now it’s simple – glass ball, rubber ball. I’ve also learned that some balls can be handed to others for safe keeping.  And just like that, for the first time – I’m juggling and it’s easy.