Latest / Career Coaching with Fexingo: Professional Coaches, Career Counselors, and Guidance for Workers / How a Career Inventory Stops You Hoarding Roles
Transcript
- Lucas: So you know that feeling when you're busy all day, but at the end of the week you can't really point to what you actually accomplished? Luna: Yeah, that's basically my default state since about 2022. Lucas: Right. And there's a reason for that, and it's not just 'too many meetings.' I think a lot of us — especially knowledge workers — are quietly hoarding roles. We're not just doing our job. We're doing several jobs, most of which we never formally agreed to. Luna: Hoarding roles. That's a strong image. So you're saying we accumulate professional identities the way someone might accumulate old furniture? Lucas: Exactly. And the tool to spot that is something I call a career inventory. It's different from a to-do list or a resume. A resume lists what you've done. A to-do list lists what you need to do. A career inventory lists everything you're currently responsible for — the paid work, the unpaid work, the side projects, the favors, the committee seats, the 'hey can you just review this' requests. And when you actually write it all down, the mismatch between your official job description and your actual day-to-day becomes glaring. Luna: Okay, I'm skeptical. This sounds like a productivity exercise that's going to make me feel worse about how much I'm not doing. What's the actual benefit? Lucas: Fair question. Let me give you a real example. I worked with a marketing manager — let's call her Priya — who felt constantly drained. She thought she was bad at time management. So we did an inventory. She listed every recurring responsibility she had. Took about forty minutes. When she finished, she had twenty-seven distinct items. And when we grouped them by theme, she realized she wasn't a marketing manager. She was: one, the brand strategist for her team; two, the unofficial mentor for three junior colleagues; three, the social media crisis responder for the whole company; four, the person who planned every team offsite; and five, the go-to for any presentation needing a 'creative touch.' That's five roles, not one. Luna: Okay, that's a lot. And I bet none of those extra roles came with extra pay or a title change. Lucas: None. And more importantly, she had never explicitly said yes to any of them. They just accreted. Someone asked her to mentor a new hire, and she said sure. Someone noticed she was good at Canva, so she became the deck-polisher. She never audited the accumulation. That's role hoarding. Luna: So the career inventory is like a mirror. You see the monster. But then what? Do you just quit everything? Lucas: No, and that's the key. The inventory doesn't tell you to drop everything. It tells you what to keep, what to delegate, what to renegotiate, and what to stop. Priya, for example, decided that mentoring was actually the part of her job she cared about most. So she kept that. But she stopped doing the offsite planning — she showed her boss that it was eating eight hours a month and asked if someone else could own it. The boss agreed. She also set a boundary on the creative touch requests: she'd review decks but not rewrite them. Luna: So the inventory becomes a negotiation document. That's smart. She went to her boss with data, not just a feeling of being overwhelmed. Lucas: Exactly. And the data was specific. It wasn't 'I'm stressed.' It was 'I'm spending 30 percent of my time on activities that aren't in my job description, and which nobody has asked me to prioritize.' That's a much stronger conversation. Luna: I'm thinking about my own inventory. I bet I have a few 'offsite planner' equivalents. There's the department newsletter I somehow inherited, and the 'can you proofread this' requests that come in every week. Lucas: And those are exactly the items that slip under the radar because they're small. But small things add up. A career inventory captures the quarter-inch drill bits that collectively bore a hole through your week. Luna: You know, speaking of things that add up — and this is a tiny detour — I've been thinking about what makes this show possible. It's not ads. It's listeners who find value in episodes like this and decide to toss a couple of dollars our way. If today's conversation was worth a coffee to you, that's the link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Honestly, even one coffee keeps us going. No pressure. Just an option. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small way to keep this ad-free. And we appreciate it. So back to the inventory — once you've done the audit, the next step is to ask yourself: if I could only keep three roles from this list, which three would I choose? That forces a prioritization that your daily inbox never will. Luna: Three roles. That's harsh. What if I genuinely enjoy the newsletter? And the proofreading? And my actual job? Lucas: Then you keep all three. But you do it consciously. The point isn't to minimize for the sake of minimizing. It's to stop accumulating by default. If you want to do the newsletter because it gives you joy, great. But now you're choosing it, not drifting into it. Luna: So the inventory is really about agency. It's a tool to reclaim intentionality. Lucas: Exactly. And I'd argue most professionals need to do this every six months. Because roles shift. Projects end. New ones begin. Without a periodic inventory, you wake up two years later doing a job you never applied for. Luna: How do you actually conduct one? Walk us through the mechanics. Lucas: Sure. Block out an hour. Open a blank document or a notebook. First, list every recurring responsibility you have — work, volunteer, side hustle, even household management if it affects your career energy. Don't filter. Just dump. Second, for each item, note how many hours per month it takes. Be honest. Third, group them into roles. You might find that 'weekly team standup prep' and 'monthly board deck' both fall under 'internal communications.' Fourth, rate each role on two scales: how much energy it gives you versus drains you, and how aligned it is with your long-term goals. Luna: So you're looking for drain plus misalignment. That's your deletion list. Lucas: Right. But also energy plus alignment — those are your keepers. And the tricky zone is drain plus alignment. That's a role that matters but needs a different structure. Maybe you delegate part of it or ask for support. Luna: I like that. It's not just a chopping block. It's a map of where to invest and where to cut. Lucas: Exactly. And once you have that map, you can have a conversation with your manager or your team. You can say, 'I've done an audit of my commitments. Here's what I'm spending time on. Here's what I think is most valuable. Can we realign expectations?' Luna: Have you done this yourself? What did your inventory look like? Lucas: I did it about a year ago. I discovered I was spending roughly fifteen hours a month on what I called 'invisible editing' — reading drafts from colleagues who wanted feedback but weren't officially my direct reports. I enjoyed it, but it was crowding out my own writing. So I set up a monthly office hours slot instead. People could book thirty minutes. It consolidated the time and made it visible. Luna: So you didn't stop helping. You just structured it. That's a good model. Lucas: Yeah. And that's the nuance I want to leave listeners with. A career inventory isn't about doing less. It's about doing what matters more deliberately. It's about stopping the slow drift into a role you never chose. Luna: So what's the first step for someone listening right now? Lucas: Open a document. Set a timer for fifteen minutes. Write down everything you did last week that felt like a responsibility — even the small stuff. Don't judge. Just write. That's the start. Luna: I'm going to do that this afternoon. I already know my newsletter is going to show up. And I'm going to decide whether it stays or goes. Lucas: And whatever you decide, it'll be a choice. That's the whole point. Luna: Alright, I'm sold. Thanks for the nudge. Lucas: Happy to help. See you next time.