Nobody at the potluck remembers who brought the napkins. Everybody would notice if no one did.

Essential and memorable are two different categories. Napkins are invisible when present and a disaster when absent, which describes most genuinely useful contributions. If you only ever do the jobs that get remembered, somebody else is quietly keeping everything upright while you collect the credit. Noticing the unglamorous gap is a skill, and filling it without being asked is rarer still.

Find this week’s napkins. The chairs nobody stacked, the form nobody filled in, the kit nobody washed. Handle one of them and resist the urge to make sure anybody knows you did.