The work that belongs to several people should not depend on one person’s reluctance to disappoint them.

Shared work often stays afloat because one member cannot bear to let it sink. That person picks up whatever is dropped, and because nothing visibly fails, the group never learns that anything was missing. What looks like a functioning team is really one person’s conscience doing the work of a system. It holds until they burn out or leave, and then everything surfaces at once.

If you are the one absorbing the gaps, let one thing that matters little be visibly undone. Then talk about the pattern rather than the single task.