Managing Overload: Part 3

The Daily Challenge

Worn-out leaders bring down healthy projects.

As your team’s most experienced problem-solver, you are well-paid to be the engineering thought leader.

Yet, this position can be exhausting when you answer the same questions several times.

I’m having a build problem.
How can I set up the project?
How do we do this rinse-and-repeat process?

Answering the same questions repeatedly can fast-track you to burnout.

Here is how you can turn this path of suffering into success with solution #3 in this series.

The Third Solution

With a remote or hybrid workforce, this recommendation is practically begging to be brought into practice.

Most questions come via tools like Slack or Teams rather than from a tap on the shoulder.

Take advantage of that.

Don’t answer your colleagues directly.
Answer their question with a tool that gives you a link.

Let’s examine why that’s valuable and what I use to accomplish it.

The Tools

For this recommendation, lightweight tools are the only option. Otherwise, the process becomes too cumbersome.

Two in particular rise to the top:

• Loom: record your answer as a video with a screen recording and voice-over.

• Scribe: create step-by-step screenshots using point-and-click gestures, and AI will automatically describe and assemble them into a document.

Each tool takes no longer to use than it takes for you to walk through the solution once.

When you finish, give this link to your colleague for them to chew on.

Keep this link with a quick summary of your answers in a spreadsheet for your personal knowledge base.

Why It Works

In my experience, between 30% and 40% of the questions I get are repeats. These repeats should take no longer to answer than finding the link and sharing it.

I started publishing generalized answers on a YouTube channel when I first discovered this. I still get questions that I can answer with a quick link to one of my public videos.

No one wants to read documentation, but everyone needs answers. Short, on-point screen shares or step-by-step screenshots sit in the perfect center of digestible information with a human touch.

Run Like a Business

Some of the most successful people I’ve ever met use this link + spreadsheet approach to run their seven and eight-figure businesses.

Successful software teams must function like businesses, where demands on leadership are balanced and younger engineers have the resources to grow and operate independently.

Without this approach, knowledge is heavily skewed toward more senior members, making most of the team less valuable as they starve for resources and scramble on their own.

Your knowledge is more valuable than you know.

Use these tools to make this knowledge transfer process easy so you can get back to what you are really good at.