#17 Insecure activities
Do you remember a time when you were looking at the same metrics over and over, or checking to see there is a reply to an email and a text message you sent a min ago? Scott Belsky called it ‘Insecure Activities’ in his book Messy Middle.
Instead of doing deep work, I sometime spend my days doing ’Insecure and Reactive’ work. Not long ago, I sent one email to a colleague, and she replied ‘no’ cc’ing three of her managers. Not just her own manager, but her manager’s manager and one level above, etc. Clearly an escalation! My reactive mode was turned on. I replied once and then 30 min passed by, no reply, so sent one more email trying to clarify ‘misunderstanding’ and waited for her reply - 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours passed by. Feeling like an eternity… Finally, a reply came ‘we are good’, but now the other people in the email chain replied, which triggered me to reply right away. It was an exhausting experience!
As I am reflecting, I should not have sent an email, but a single line of short slack message. It is an art of written communication! What are your recent insecure activities?