A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT – Part A
Monday, February 20, 2023
I lack the ability to squeeze two work days between Thursday and Friday each week …
It seems like I need that – the ability to find two more days or reduce two days of work volume because I have a known quantity of work and a finite amount of me.
Monday morning too often feels like the movie Groundhog Day – a repetition of too many identical Mondays, a task-heavy schedule, carrying forward unpurged excess baggage, and self-imposed tasks – this load on paper tends to deplete my energy before I start the day.
Starting with a blank page, not a task on the page – only white emptiness.
That might help for one day, but without paring tasks or narrowing my focus, that only sets me up for a horrid load the next day and the next one after that …
Monday never seems to be the vast open space of possibility I wish for, for initiating exciting new action; sometimes, I’d like to chuck everything old into a bin to be dumped if not addressed by a date certain, but all my bins are full.
The reality of self-employment is you can’t quit on yourself, nor do you want to, because self-employment is all about self-enjoyment and self-empowerment. That’s often more pain than employment causes, but on its most ordinary of days, it’s far more pleasure than most employment could ever offer …
Yes, today is a holiday – no work for many, but not for me. I’m whining about that, in case you interpret my words that way, but as a way of explaining that I’m the most demanding boss I’ve ever had and also the happiest and most empowered employee I can imagine being …
I self-impose/dedicate most of the day working on this week’s FACILITYCalgary issue for Tuesday morning; that’s been nearly 24 years now, which might be a convenient excuse, but the truth is my workload/juggle is a seven-day scheduling and work volume challenge. If I’m going to change effectively, I have to change how I manage every day, and any such re-org must also produce some blank space in addition to evenings for the weekends.
That’s health protection, obviously, but it’s also taking care of an important personal relationship with Hazel as well as I can, and that’s an area where I need to pull up my socks and commit more time and intention ...
Coming into 2023 with great optimism – that was me, focused and intentional – following an extended downturn in the Calgary economy, the challenge of a prolonged high office vacancy in Calgary, my post-pandemic ‘new initiatives’ are on my calendar every day – but they must fight in my head, for attention and re-ranking their priority every day within a well-intentioned conglomeration of too many diarized unfinished tasks, follow-ups, and things that seemed like a good idea at the time …
So, I have some schedule triage/battlefield-surgery in progress and regular Morning work that will last all day and into tomorrow’s wee hours.
To be continued …
Reader feedback:
That was a good way of living one's life, I quit watching the news on T.V or on the radio about 18 years ago, for I guess the same reason. It's a much better way of going through our life, rather than focusing what's wrong with the world you focus on what's right with it, PS, Calgary, AB