The Sociologist Hat practice is a useful way to step back into observer mode in order to notice group dynamics without getting pulled into the drama. This matters for leaders and anyone really who is trying to function well within groups and teams, especially in times of great uncertainty.

That practice relates to the foundational layer of two of the six Resilient Teams components:

• Self and systems awareness → noticing negative bias and group contagion before it derails momentum (and then there are later components to develop the skills to rebuild once it’s been derailed)

• Emotional and cognitive regulation → shifting from reactivity to embodied leadership and grounded group behavior in the moment (later components of the program teach constructive feedback and communication for when things go off the rails, as they will.)

It’s an understatement to say that everything these days feels extra frenetic. That’s on top of the typical cycle that comes every October when the back-to-school energy has long faded into mid-semester/season tension, stress, and compounding deadlines.

No wonder then that increasingly, the most challenging part of work, family, and community life is showing up without being pulled into other folks' emotions, drama, and fear.

I needed a practice to create space between the reactivity of others and my own sensitivity as I was healing my own burnout and breakdowns but still working in the academy.

This summer, I experimented with stepping back from social media. I rarely posted beyond Substack and my continued focus on these weekly newsletters to you. I slowed down my pressures for public output. I engaged in what really nourishes connection, which meant some good community growth both in launching The Grove, as well as in my local city. I shifted that lost time and energy to creating more practices and resources to share with you.

We’re in that in-between season where we’re still carrying a little of summer’s energy and maybe some garden or farmer’s market abundance. And also already feeling the pull into autumn with those neighbors who already have halloween decorations up. Ultimately, though, I’m feeling how the days are shifting with earlier dusk, the calendar is filling with requests pushed off until after summer, and maybe you, too, have noticed how quickly old work habits creep back in.

Thresholds are invitations to be intentional and to slow.

Here we are, finally, at the final step in boundary prioritization: just doing the dang thing already. So.

What deserves your yes today?

I saved the Do Now step for last. You get to the “do” once you’ve deleted, delayed, and delegated. This is where the shift from overwhelm to clarity really happens if we’ve gone through the other steps already. We need to clear the noise. Otherwise, your doing is scattered, resentful, and overextended.

In the 4Ds of Prioritization—Delete, Delay, Delegate, Do—up next is  Delegate.

If Delete is saying “no” and Delay is “not yet,” then Delegate is: “This doesn’t have to be mine to do.”

One of my clients thought she was already good at delegating as she is a well-experienced department head until she started using the 4Ds. In the middle of a stressful accreditation cycle, she realized:

“Normally, I would have lost my mind trying to map competencies into our accreditation documents. But then I stopped and remembered: I have a whole committee for this. Instead of panicking, I handed it over. Each person took one page. It wasn’t mine to carry alone.”

Delegation is choosing not to collapse under the invisible weight of control.

In the 4Ds of Prioritization - Delete, Delay, Delegate, Do - today we turn to Delay.

If Delete is the clean, firm “no,” Delay is the softer “not now.” 

It’s a “not now” rather than delete because there’s something about it that fits in with your priorities or your actual required job tasks (not the ones you make up and self-assign due to overing). 

Delay is the boundary that protects your pace and keeps urgency culture from hijacking your nervous system.

When I worked with one corporate client, she was leading a team inside a workplace that glorified speed. Every request was marked “ASAP” or came with !!! marks in red. She told me she felt like her brain was always revving, never resting. Chasing disco dancing squirrels, we’d joke.

I shared the 4Ds of Prioritization (Delete, Delay, Delegate, Do Now) as a boundary-setting practice. Let’s dive into the first one: Delete.

Delete is the cleanest, simplest boundary. It’s the power of saying “no.” But for many of us, especially those of us trained in people-pleasing, caretaking, or perfectionism, it’s also the hardest. 

I’ll never forget a conversation with one client who’s an experienced head of a department. She, like many others, came to coaching because she was drowning in commitments at work and home, unable to catch her breath.

Last week, I had a few days in San Diego with family commitments, but snuck away for an afternoon at the Pacific Ocean. The kiddo and I rode the waves by throwing our bodies into them, feeling into the push-pull rhythm in a way that stays in your body well after leaving. But at first, it felt foreign to my body. I stood with my back to the ocean, feeling the waves and then watching their foamy ripple move towards the shore. A few times, they’d rise taller, smacking me so hard on my back that it took my breath away or knocked me down, while salty water stung my eyes from flooding my face.

That mix of steady back and forth with some strong overcoming waves feels a lot like the moment folks are in right now.

Are you feeling some late-summer jitters or that unnamed dread of the school year (regardless of whether you have kids or not)? I mean, I just sent my kiddo off to 7th grade last week!

Whether you're in academia, an education-adjacent role, or simply feeling the cultural pull of the back-to-school season (hello, school supplies overflowing even in the grocery store), that creeping anxiety often comes unannounced and unwelcome.

Let’s meet it with presence, not panic.

Increasingly, it seems, or maybe it’s my aging, but every year when August rolls in like an unwelcome heatwave. A bit oppressive and uncomfortable. Lots of overwhelm in all the things to do, which then increases my anxiety. Work spills over into home time more and more, the tensing of the shoulders, tightening jaw, and a dread that blankets everything.

For me, my tolerance for what I lovingly call the bullshitery is at an all-time low. Some of that is due to heat and politics. Some of it from all the things happening in the world and country. Largely, though, with the ongoing work of healing my body and nervous system since leaving academia, I’m less interested or available to put up with inhumane work norms, for myself and for you.

Contrary to popular belief, boundaries at work don’t start with an email or a policy. They start with a moment of self-honesty.

In the world of work, especially for those of us called to lead, care, or create, we’re taught, subtly or directly, that being endlessly available equals being valuable. But the truth is: overgiving, overexplaining, and overextending don’t make you indispensable; they make you depleted.