IN-BASKET OVERFLOW
Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019
Working hard.
Working ahead.
Oh, those were the days.
Doing things before they are needed, and completing things before they were due.
I remember students who worked like that. I was one of those kids. Did that too. Early in my work life, I worked that way. Where did that go, that behavior, that zeal?
I remember a boss who memorably offered me some comforting words; he said that if I didn’t have a lot of things in my in-basket I wouldn’t be necessary. I was young, impressionable and didn’t have the presence of mind to ask how much was in his in-basket?
I’ve been writing about and thinking about habits a lot lately – trying to examine how I create new ones that serve my purpose, how I purge ones which run counter to my aims.
I guess, losing one would be better called habit de-forming.
Not feeling pressed, oppressed or behind some proverbial 8-ball is something we can get away from for a while. Vacation comes to mind. A good long weekend rest too. Otherwise I think these circumstances are unavoidable omnipresence of modern life. But I have to wonder, in ancient life, if things were much different. Some men and women – the older ones, sat around a fire and might have decided what they would do the next morning, where particular members of the group would go to hunt or gather, deciding who would lead and who would follow. These are all, I suppose, issues of habit. Of habits formed.
I would love to be caught up, love to be ahead of the game – sometime, one day, just one day.
