My history in Support and SysAdmin work has been that being busy provides a never-ending series of small wins from each issue you resolve, ticket you close, KB article you write, etc. There is a lot of reactive work, but carving out time for longer-term benefits (without the small wins) feels like long-term investments for long-term wins. My current role is not like that at all. It's long-term investments for long-term wins, with nearly zero short-term wins. Has anyone else here made a career transition like that, from regular short-term wins (and the dopamine hits that come with them) to nearly zero short-term wins?
If so, how did you deal with the lack of short-term successes? What did you replace them with? Is this what people go through when they give up smoking and look for substitutes like lollipops or bubble gum?
Even in support management you can feel the wins by proxy as your team implements your coaching/mentoring.
I do like checking things off a list, but the items on the list have to matter.
This may sound silly, but my ADHD approach has always been to break large tasks into small one. For example, instead of "Clean my bedroom" as a kid, I made a list of all the small things I had to do to get there like "find laundry, pick up trash, put all the books on the shelf ..." As an adult, it still works. I make myself checklists of small steps for each project, and then I feel like I'm getting things done.
I certainly can relate, I went through this about a decade ago when I was handed a team for the first time and the priorities shifted from “me” to “us”. I remember it not being easy, because I certainly enjoyed “winning”. Over time, I’ve shifted my thinking away from goals (with quick wins) to systems instead. I do things every day, every week, every month, etc. with the implicit knowledge that they are part of my system, and over time I’ve developed a joyous feeling when the system continues to deliver the results I thought it would. Of course, there had to be many course corrections over the years, but overall, this thinking has been very helpful for my own sanity.
Ashley Good point -- I am not my job, and my job is not me, but if I'm going to spend so much of the day doing things for pay, I makes a difference to me that those things help other people, not just pass the time. Still, good point. In my head I know that work does not validate someone's value, but all day long it feels better to do something that is helpful to someone else.
Thank you everyone. It helps.
I'll add one other point here. If you're in a role long enough, you'll start to see the payoff of those long term projects. Then you start to see them clicking over and over, just a few months or quarters or years behind. The delay could be painful, but if you stick it out it can be satisfying in a similar way.
