How to Think Like a Cat - Stephane Garnier 2018

Your Cat Knows How to Delegate

’I gave an order to a cat, and he gave it to his tail’

CHINESE PROVERB

Do you tend always to be at your friends’ or family’s beck and call? Or are you of the opinion that everyone should wait on you and pander to your every whim?

Don’t overdo it, but knowing how to be served like a cat can really take the strain out of the everyday.

It’s a well-known fact that a cat does nothing, and spends its time being served by others. The cat is king or queen of all it surveys.

You don’t have to copy this royal and dominating attitude to the letter, but neither should you be everyone’s gopher, always at your family’s service. Meeting every expectation, whim and desire of your kids or your partner doesn’t make for the most restful existence.

Learn to be served like your cat, and start by delegating the little everyday tasks. You are not your children’s slave or skivvy, and it won’t do them any harm to take on a few chores — in fact it will help make them more independent. Plus you’ll save time, be more efficient, and less tired and stressed. Knowing how to delegate is key. And stop doing tasks yourself just because it’s quicker than getting other people to do them.

This also holds true in the workplace. Many company directors and other managers are incapable of trusting others and delegating, so they spend far too much of their time checking and validating their employees’ efforts. This creates a culture where employees develop a need to be ’mothered’ and will want every minute detail of their work checked and approved. The end result is wasted hours, a loss of autonomy for the employees, and an excess of work for the boss — which may well be you.

Above all, learning to delegate means carving out time for yourself, to do what you like, rather than being a slave to the everyday needs of your family and friends.

And here’s another way of seeing things: isn’t delegation proof of the trust you have in those closest to you, in your employees, your partner and your children?

Perhaps it would be going too far to say that it’s for your own good that your cat expects you to wait on it hand and foot. Remember though:

Be a cat at work and at home: learn to delegate.

Food for Thought

’The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry’

FRENCH PROVERB