How you know
You could list what you did for other people this week faster than what you finished.
Something to say
“Some of what I've been doing doesn't show up anywhere. Can I walk you through what the week actually had in it?”
It's easier to spot this afterwards than at the time. Give it a week before you decide it isn't yours.
Two ways in
One is a habit. The other is one person.
Neither is the better one. Pick whichever matches the thing that is actually bothering you.
On your own
The habit, not the incident.
Invisible work is still work, and nobody can take it into account while it stays invisible. Saying what's in your week isn't complaining.
- Write down what you actually did for a week, the unlogged things included. Then read the list.
- Say no to one of them, once, and see what happens. Usually less than you were braced for.
- Name the trade out loud: if this stays mine, that one's late. Let somebody else pick.
With somebody in mind
The same friction, one person.
The person you've been quietly covering for almost certainly doesn't know. That's the whole mechanism. If it were visible, you wouldn't have had to do it.
- Tell that one person what you've been picking up for them. Not as a complaint. As news, because that's what it is.
- Hand one thing back, by name and by day. The vaguer the ask, the faster it finds its way home to you.
One of these, not all of them. And in your own words, because ours won't sound like you.
Where this sharpens
It lands hardest with two of the five.
Not because anybody is difficult. These are just the two who reach for something different first, at the same moment.
Which one is yours
You are reading The Designer. Is that actually you?
Ten situations, about three minutes, no sign-up. It tells you which of the five you reach for first — and which version of this page is yours.
Five readings
This plays differently depending on what you reach for first.
Pick the one that sounds most like you. Reading a dimension is not a claim that you are one.