The baby, the puppy and the piano.

Some days arrive one at a time. Others arrive all at once, and they do not knock. I want to share one personal story about feeling overwhelmed, because I think every business owner and every busy professional will recognise it, even if their version has fewer paws and fewer piano keys.

It was the period just after COVID, when we were all learning how to live in society again, enjoying our freedom and moving everything back into place. Here in Australia we have kerbside collection days, when you can put the things you no longer need out on the kerb and have them collected. (For my American friends: think bulk trash pickup on the curb.) I missed the day by one day. So I had to take my rubbish across to another neighbourhood and leave it in front of a friend's house, because he said he still had some space and it was okay to use it. I spent the whole day doing that and organising it. It was a very tiring day, just getting everything done.

Once I finished, the breeder of my cattle dog, Tilo, called to say that Tilo was ready and I could collect him that day. If I didn't, it would have to be the following week, because she was going away and all the dogs would be with somebody else. So I said okay. I drove two hours to her farm with my son, and it was quite an adventure.

When we came back home, my partner was standing with a delivery driver. We had just bought a piano, and the piano was arriving that day. So I had a new dog, I had just removed a lot of rubbish from the house, and a new piano was coming in, with people who had to assemble it. I had to help, because moving a piano into a house is not an easy task. Meanwhile the new puppy was inside, so I put him outside for the moment, and we got the piano in.

Then I sat down at the table, exhausted, just to eat something, and my partner told me she was pregnant. We were going to have our third child.

I felt so much emotion that day: a mix of tiredness, worry and happiness. And I thought to myself, I need to hire some people to help me out. I am one of those A-type players who believes he can do everything himself. I don't like to ask for help; I just keep things going. That day was a humbling day for me. In front of God, I asked for help for the season ahead, because I knew it was going to be a challenging one. It was a small prayer in my heart.

The baby, the puppy and the piano

I still remember that day as the most overwhelmed I have felt. After clearing out all the rubbish, that is what I got: a new piano, a new dog and a new baby, all at once. And every one of them is great. The piano is fantastic and made my partner happy. The dog has given our family joy. And of course the baby is our third child, whom I love dearly. It was a good day, yet I could not really enjoy it, because I was so overwhelmed.

That is the metaphor I want you to keep. In business, the baby, the puppy and the piano are the good things: the big client, the new hire who needs training, the opportunity you have wanted for years. They rarely come one at a time, and they never check your calendar first. The rubbish is everything you are still carrying yourself.

With that in mind, here are four lessons I took from that day, for anyone who runs a business or a busy career.

01Admit the season is coming

The hardest part of that day was not the piano. It was admitting that I could not carry everything on my own. Many owners and high performers wear "I'll just do it myself" as a badge of honour. It works, right up until three good things arrive on the same afternoon.

Asking for help is not weakness. It is the moment you stop running the business from memory and willpower, and start running it on purpose.

Insight: if you feel overwhelmed by good news, that is not a sign you are failing. It is a sign the season has changed, and your way of working has to change with it.

Overwhelm often arrives with good news.

02Build the system before the piano arrives

Notice where my day really went wrong: I missed the kerbside collection by one day. One missed date turned a simple job into a whole day of driving rubbish across town. Most overwhelm in business starts the same way, with something small that lived only in somebody's head.

A system is simply a decision you make once, so you don't have to make it again on your worst day: a shared calendar with the collection dates on it, a checklist for onboarding a new client, a template for the proposal you write every month, a standard reply for the question every customer asks. Clear the kerb, then clear the calendar.

Insight: write down the three jobs you repeat every week and turn each one into a checklist or a template this month, before the busy season, not during it.

03Play to your strengths, delegate the rest

When the piano came in, I did not try to assemble it alone. There were people who knew how, and I helped where I was useful. That is delegation in one picture.

Be honest about the areas where you are good and the areas where you are not so good. Your strengths are where your time earns the most, and the rest deserves a person, a partner or a process. Delegating is not giving up control. It is choosing where your attention goes.

Insight: list your week's tasks in two columns, "only I can do this" and "someone or something else could". Hand off one item from the second column every week.

04Let AI take what it does better

Here is the humbling part for an A-type professional: maybe an AI is going to do a better job than you at some of the work. Not the judgement, the relationships or the care, but the sorting, drafting, scheduling and summarising that quietly eat the day. An assistant can triage your inbox, draft the first version of a proposal, turn meeting notes into actions, keep track of dates you would otherwise miss, and pull research together while you are on the road for two hours collecting a puppy.

Start with one bounded, repeatable job, check its work for a few weeks, and widen its role only as it earns your trust. You stay responsible for the result; the machine just carries more of the weight.

Insight: pick one weekly task you dread and give it to AI with clear instructions and a human review. The hours you win back are what let you enjoy the good days.

In short

Overwhelm often arrives with good news. Admit the season is coming, build your systems before you need them, play to your strengths and delegate the rest, and let AI take the work it does better. Then, when the baby, the puppy and the piano arrive on the same day, you can actually enjoy them.

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour." — Ecclesiastes 4:9

So, what is your baby, your puppy and your piano this season, and what will you hand over before they arrive? What are your insights?

— Will

Written by Will, with Bloggy, his AI editor