I used to be an administrator within the academic system. Unlike a bureaucrat who is interested in procedural correctness, I only strive to get things done. If there is a roadblock, I will always find ways to solve it.
That would include getting budget to set up a department when I have no authority to do so. Getting my own promotion because the management needed someone to helm a department they had never meant to set up. And in an odd twist of fate, I even wrote the letter to recommend my own promotion.
So in my days of being an administrator, I had found money, build a team, build revenue streams and made money for the new department. The money the department made was “saved” creatively to allow for usage later.
If there is such a term, I would consider myself as an entrepreneurial-bureaucrat.
Since leaving my bureaucrat job, I had moved into an artisan endeavour. There is no need to hassle to get things done for I am “alone”. There is a need to slow down to contemplate. Time alone to think, create or simply rest. Hustling to do more things just does not seem to be productive. Instead, sometimes trying too hard often produces unintended result.
But often one needs straddling between the both world. You will need time to clear the day to day work and also time to build. That meant assigning different time for different work.
Building needs a single block of uninterrupted time stretching for at least 6 - 8 hours.
Clearing Work often involve many items each taking no more than 30 minutes each.
The realisation that it is easier to be an entrepreneurial-bureaucrat than an artisan trying to be an entrepreneur.
For
Planning for work when you know it cannot be force
Planning for time you do not know you need
can be just so uncertain, tough and draining.
But I had chosen the path and the only choice now is to soldier on .
Ong Wee Hiang