Why I suck at delegating (and why you might too) | kent’s posterous
(via Lifehacker.)
Delegation is not natural, it’s a skill and an art. Some of the most successful and note worthy people got to where they are due to their ability to let go of control and delegate. Other would be great people got swamped and stressed due to the fact that they never let go of control and never learned the art of delegation…Learning how to let go is one of the hardest things for us to do. That’s why great things happen when we do.
It may sound snarky, but I love having other people do my work for me. And by “work,” I mean research. But what makes it great is that most of the time, they enjoy doing it, and it’s my job to let them do it! I highly recommend getting students involved in your research as early in your career as possible. Like everything, it takes practice, and it would be good to have some skills before you start mentoring grad students. I personally think the best time is actually during the last couple years of graduate school when the non-thesis side projects start to popup. If you’re on the academic track, by the time you’re into the end of your first postdoc, you should be thinking about projects you can “let go” of to let students take a stab at.