# Why handling what isn't yours piles on your load [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-13 updated: 2026-10-13 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Personal source booklet: [Where the Day Went](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/personal-order-time) Most of your overload is what you agreed to take on. It gets built in three ways, and each of them looks like work. According to the source, the biggest goof a person can make is to handle needless traffic without recognizing it as such. Most of your overload is built from that, in three ways of taking on work that is not yours, and each of them feels like responsibility. ## The mistake of the person who tries hard The source calls it the biggest goof of all: handling something without recognizing it as **developed traffic**, meaning work that never needed to happen, such as a question that reached the wrong person. In the source's words, the basket of someone who does this soon overflows. It adds a claim that applies to anyone who feels overloaded. When a person suffers from overwork and heavy traffic, the cause can usually be traced to letting that traffic exist without understanding it and without trying to put it right. Notice who the description is about. The one who handles what is not his is the person who tries hard. Someone who neglects things leaves it alone. You see something that is not yours, and you deal with it because that is faster than explaining. Every time you do, you teach everyone around you that it works. Two minutes here and two minutes there do not feel like a decision, yet each one settles whom they will turn to next time. Suppose an owner answers every technical question from his customers because it takes only two minutes. A year later he is the technical support line for all of them. Or a manager who approves every exception just this once. Each approval creates the next request. Now the opposite. The same support owner starts sending questions back with a link to the FAQ page, and within a month the number of questions drops by half. The booklet sums it up in one sentence: the overload you carry comes from what you accepted. ## When someone brings you a problem and you solve it The source flags one particular case, and its reasoning is surprising. When a junior brings a problem and a senior solves it, that creates needless traffic, because the person who brought the problem will usually not use the solution either. The argument concerns the outcome and has little to do with time. A solution you hand someone in their place will not be carried out, because they are not the one who thought of it. So you pay twice: once for the time you spent, and once for the problem when it returns. Suppose an owner solves a supplier problem for one of his crew. A month later the same problem is back, because the crew member never acted on the solution. It was never his. Next time, the owner asks the crew member what he would do. That solution is less polished than the owner's own, and it gets carried out. The same reasoning comes back later in the booklet, in the chapter on problems that arrive with a recommendation. ## The favorite horse The source brings in one more case, and this one is harder to admit. It describes a staff member who rides his favorite hobby horse: he gives orders and complies only in the area he likes, and he neglects areas of greater importance. The damage does not stay with him. According to the source, such a person's orders cross other orders, distract from important targets and create needless traffic, while vital actions are neglected. A small-business owner is the most exposed to this, since nobody oversees him. The area he enjoys most gets more hours than it is worth, and it feels like proper work. Suppose a designer who loves the idea stage and hates execution. His ideas are excellent and his deliveries run late. Or a garage owner who loves complicated jobs. They bring him 15 percent of his revenue and take 40 percent of his time. When he sets a fixed day for the simple, profitable jobs, his preference stays as it was, and his schedule now accounts for it. ## What to check when the load grows In all three cases the load came in through a door you opened. Once it was something that was not yours, handled because that was quicker. Once it was someone else's problem, solved for him. And once it was an area you enjoy, given more than it deserves. What the three share is that none of them looks like a mistake while it is happening. From outside it looks like dedication, and from inside it feels like work, which is why it is so hard to catch in time. So when the load grows, the booklet suggests checking what you accepted, and what you do because you enjoy it. What annoys you will tell you much less. ## What the booklet has on this The chapter this article draws on includes two exercises: what I accepted, and the horse. After them comes a self-check, and from there the booklet moves to a chapter on doing things at once, whose argument appeals to your wish for ease. If you feel that everyone brings you everything, first check how much of that you taught them to bring. - [Where the Day Went](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/personal-order-time): Names for what eats the day, a sort you can mark against, and one structure that takes twenty minutes to set up. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/handling-what-is-not-yours-anyway) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/handling-what-is-not-yours-anyway)