Growing up, we are told countless times to be patient and slow down. 

When you are naturally impatient person, you always want to get things over with as soon as possible. While speedy delivery might initially be rewarded both at school and in the workplace, it might not scale in the long run.

If you’re guilty, of trying to answer emails as soon as you receive them, finishing projects way before deadline, or rushing through your to-do lists with manic speed, then you’re overlooking the most undervalued workplace trait ‘patience’.

Because slowing down and embracing patience means the following:

You stop creating extra works for yourself and others
One of the worst habits would be answering emails—urgent or not as soon as they hit inbox. This not only causes a rapid back-and-forth of messages, but it also often creates unnecessary exchanges that would’ve been solved, sometimes, by others on the thread if only you hadn’t responded immediately. You might think you are being helpful but others might see it as you trying to prove your competence and reliability in a superfluous way.

If you’re hardwired to check things off your to-do list ASAP ,then you won’t find it exactly a piece of cake to take a step back before you fire off a response. However, once you begin to see that it’s more efficient and effective to wait for colleagues to weigh in, or for the sender to clarify or figure out the question themselves (for those non-urgent emails, that is), you’ll be happy you slowed your roll.

You won't be seen as a pest
When you are too focused on what deliverables colleagues owe you, you are pestering people more than completing your work.

Instead of tapping your toe, waiting on someone to finish their contribution, exercise patience and you’ll be able to transfer your attention to tasks you want and need to complete. The sooner you realize that you can’t embed your sense of urgency in everyone, the better. And, even more importantly, your co-workers will benefit from your trust and ability to back-off, ultimately lending you the same courtesy in turn.

You let go of stress
This might be obvious, but impatient attitude often adds up to a whole lot of stress.

Wanting so badly to get everything done so that you could take a deep breath, kick off my boots, and relax, is not a problem but unsurprisingly, that’s not how things work.

There will always be ongoing projects, and playing work whack-a-mole (at a maniacal pace) won’t keep your stress levels at bay. In fact, it just makes it worse.

You display better judgement
When you are used to rapid decision-making you may despise leaders who take forever to make up their minds and get things done. What you fail to realize when you do this is that when higher leadership could and did change their minds on guidance, and then the rapid decision you made, or communication you relayed to your team, must also change and be disseminated again.

Slowing the pace and really thinking through things benefits everyone. Not only will this give you a chance to refine certain items, it also makes you more credible.

TheMuse

 
• job
 
• slowing down
 
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