What I Stopped Doing When I Realized No One Noticed

The Experiment

It started by accident. I was overwhelmed during accreditation season, and some things slipped. Not the critical things - the support beams held. But the routine tasks I'd always done religiously? Some of those just... didn't happen.

And nobody noticed.

That was the revelation. Some of my "essential" tasks weren't essential. They were habits. Or anxiety management. Or performance of competence. But not actually necessary.

So I started testing on purpose.

The Tasks That Didn't Matter

1. The weekly all-staff email

I'd send a comprehensive Monday email to all staff: calendar highlights, reminders, morale-boosting paragraphs. Took 45 minutes to write.

The experiment: Replaced it with a brief Slack message pointing to a shared calendar. Or nothing, if nothing new was happening.

What happened: Zero complaints. Nobody mentioned it. Turns out people were scanning for the calendar info and ignoring my heartfelt paragraphs.

2. Detailed meeting agendas for routine meetings

I'd spend 15-20 minutes crafting agendas with background context for every recurring meeting.

The experiment: Bullet points only. Or "same as last week" when that was true.

What happened: Meetings ran the same. The detailed agendas were for me, not for the participants. Most people arrived without having read them anyway.

3. Reviewing every external communication

Every newsletter, every social media post, every parent email from the office - I wanted to see it before it went out.

The experiment: Defined clear guidelines, delegated final review to the communications coordinator.

What happened: Quality stayed consistent. The guidelines did the work. My eyes weren't adding value, just bottlenecking.

4. Attending every after-school event

I felt obligated to be at every game, every performance, every parent event.

The experiment: Created a rotation system. One administrator present at each event, not necessarily me.

What happened: Parents and students didn't notice which administrator was there. They noticed that someone was there. My specific presence wasn't required.

The Tasks That Mattered More Than Expected

Not everything passed the "skip it" test.

1. Walking the building

I tried batching my visibility into specific times. It felt efficient. But I missed things - the subtle tensions, the moments when a teacher needed to grab me casually.

Lesson: Presence isn't schedulable. Hallway time is diagnostic time.

2. One-on-ones with direct reports

I cancelled a few during busy seasons. Those relationships noticeably degraded. Things I would have caught early festered.

Lesson: Relationship maintenance isn't optional. You can't batch trust.

3. Personal responses to parent concerns

I tried delegating all parent responses to the front office team.

What happened: Some parents explicitly asked for me. The ones who escalated often just needed to feel heard by "the person in charge." Delegation worked for information requests but not for emotional situations.

The Framework: Sacred vs. Routine

Sacred tasks - these can't be skipped without cost:

• Decisions only you can make
• Relationships that require your specific presence
• Strategic thinking that shapes direction
• Visible leadership during difficult moments

Routine tasks - these can be delegated, automated, or eliminated:

• Information sharing that could be asynchronous
• Approvals that don't require your judgment
• Presence that's symbolic but not substantive
• Documentation that serves process, not outcome

Why We Cling to Busywork

It's not laziness that keeps us doing unnecessary tasks. It's:

1. Identity

"I'm the kind of leader who writes thoughtful weekly emails." Letting go feels like losing part of yourself.

2. Anxiety management

Routine tasks provide psychological safety. They're controllable. Unlike the messy, uncertain real work of leadership.

3. Visibility

We want people to see us working hard. Stopping visible tasks feels risky, even if they don't produce value.

4. Sunk cost

"I've always done this." Stopping feels like admitting the past time was wasted.

The Honest Inventory

Pull up your to-do list and calendar. For each recurring item:

1. What happens if I don't do this?
2. What happens if someone else does this?
3. What happens if this doesn't get done at all?

The gap is where your time is hiding.

The Permission

Here's what I want you to hear:

You're allowed to stop doing things. You don't need anyone's permission. Your value isn't measured in volume of tasks completed.

Some tasks feel mandatory because they've always been done. That's not the same as necessary.

The truly important work - the strategic thinking, the relationship building, the hard decisions - that work suffers when it's crowded out by pseudo-essential routines.

Start Here

This week's experiment:

Pick one thing from your routine. Something you do every week that feels important but might not be.

Skip it. See what happens.

If nothing happens - congratulations. You just found time.

If something breaks - okay, you learned it matters. Put it back.

Either way, you've replaced assumption with knowledge.