Tag: Plan

What Are Your Plans

I mean for the next year. I think I just heard work, house cleaning, taking care of the kids, etc. I am asking what you are going to do for yourself.

Are you going to take a course in something? Write a book or visit a strange new place? Are you going to take up painting or some other activity?

The new year is very close at hand. You may want to start looking at your options and thoughts now. Who wants to try making possible life-changing decisions the day after a big late nite party.

Whatever you decide, think about it and make it something you can have fun with.

What Are Your Plans

We have a new month about to come to us. The big question in my mind is what are we going to do?

You’re more likely to get something done if you make a plan and write it down. You don’t have to make earth-shattering discoveries. Sometimes the most profound work boils up from small ideas.

There’s a trick to getting things done. Figure out what you want to do for a given period, and write it down. Not in the back of some notebook that you won’t be looking at for the next three months, write your intentions down somewhere where they are in your face, and you see them every day. I often use a whiteboard, an affinity chart built with post-it notes, or my monthly calendar, which I carry and look at every day.

When something is important to us, we take the time to do it right. Everything has a cost, yet not all prices are monetary. Time and attention are two resources we need to spend with great care.

What are your plans for our upcoming month?

Action

We often know what we need to do. We don’t seem to get it done. I don’t think that it’s genuinely laziness that gets in our way. As we find ourselves more and more overwhelmed, getting anything done in a timely fashion gets harder. Ergo I am working on a new plan to find a better way.

I shall schedule a time to sit down and go through all correspondence and either get it done on the spot or schedule an appropriate time to complete the task at an early date. 

Rather than when it is due, I am looking at when I can complete and send the work to wherever it goes next. Will I have to bump planned actions from time to time?  Yes, yet I will know when I do so, Why I did it, and when I complete it. 

How do you handle the snarling lion in your inbox that eats up all your time?

Get A Handle on It

I’m working hard to get a grip on everything I’m trying to do. Yet right now, it’s like looking at a tsunami of paperwork and actions that are just flooding towards me. Every time I am in front of the computer, I add something new to my work inventory and study it in depth.

My goal is to finish a course on building Evergreen classes in a month and prepare to put my first one on the market.

Background, I am five years into this dream, and now, with the help of a good instructor and others, getting some real traction.

Newer technology, an understanding wife, and better training are the main ingredients in making this possible.

What do you do when you are in the middle of an overwhelming life’s desire?

Prepare in moderation

We had a beautiful snowfall last night. It clung to the yard and even to the street. We knew what was coming, we just did not know how much snow we would get. Sometimes life is like that. We know something is happening, we just don’t have knowledge of how intense it may be or how much it will affect us.

The trick in dealing with the question of amounts is not to get carried away. Being prepared is always good. Just don’t plan or spend for something that would cause pain if it did not happen. Think of it as a measured response in everything.

 

It is easy to get carried away. I remember the first year I was in Alaska with the Air Force. We had significant snow early in September, and I went downtown and had studded snow tires put on my truck. What I did not understand, because it was my first year in Alaska, was that the snow would melt right away, and we did not get another heavy snow until late October. So, I had spent money on snow tires that just weren’t needed for another couple of months. I would be better off if I purchased the tires later when I really needed them.

I know we all take such actions, trying to stay ahead of the circumstances before us, and often spending to procure things we don’t need right away. I think that’s the way we are as a society. We are often looking forward and planning. Although it is good to look ahead and prepare, there are also some problems that can be caused in some related actions.

We need to be careful not to purchase too much, for it may not all be required. Even worse, we can buy things too early, and by the time we need them, we cannot remember where we stored them. Then we have to go out and spend more money to purchase them again.

The trick is to find moderation in preparedness. We have the things that we usually use, and maybe a few items for just in case. We need to not go overboard one way or the other, and we should have a plan to know what’s where.

 Just by putting in a little bit of forethought, we could spend less, enjoy things more, and have some real preparation of what may come, without spending too much.

Just one mean old master sergeant’s thoughts.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Transition

It feels like this may be the last hot day of the season. Coolness starts to come back tomorrow along with the possibility of rainstorms in and out for the rest of the week. More and more our weather puts us into not one season or another, instead, into a state of transition.

No matter how much we strive to find a permanent place, whether it is work, home life, or even the climate, more and more we find ourselves in a state of transition. We often fight transition wanting to stay where we are, doing what we know, and living the life we have. Believe it or not, we actually want to stay where we are, whether we like it or not.

The trick is to embrace transition when it comes. We want to get out in front of the change. Why? Because failing to do so puts us at the whims of the winds of fate. We can either enter transition not knowing where we will end up and having to live with the consequences or when change is upon us we can plan and research and act in a method which will help us to end up where we want to be. The choice is ours.

When I was 42, and just out of the Air Force, I actually built a layoff business plan. My dad was Army, I was Air Force, and I really didn’t understand how the civilian world worked regarding employment. I did know, to find a job I wanted, I had to go out and find one.

Although the factory I worked at did not close for 14 more years, the fact I had written that plan, served me well when needed. The fact that my family and I made it through those times and grew better because of them, I believe, proves that with a little fore-thought, guidance from above, and faith, transitions are not to be feared.

Transitions merely keep us excited about what is to come next. Change can be large or small, or better or worse. More than anything else change is what you make it.

No Games Here

This weekend I took all the game apps off of my iPad. You may think that that is an overreaction of spending too much time playing games. And, the day after I did so I would’ve agreed with you. Yet, it had to be done.

Games do have a tendency to reach the inner psyche and in time become habit-forming time-stealers. And it is not easy to kick the habit. Yet I have to little time and too much which I feel it is vital for me to do. Therefore, I had to make a stand, and this is it.

Right now, I am redoing a pilot course on mapping your future which I plan to have out by the end of the week. I also have another class on getting employed which I’m cleaning up and hope to have out in the next three weeks. I am studying with the NeuroLinguistic Program (NLP) Acology to start offering life coaching, and I am rewriting some of my earlier books to bring them up to date and republish them. Right now, I have way too much to accomplish and almost no time to play games.

The truth is, I like it that way. I have always been that way with any job I worked. And as I face retirement, and delve into my interests, I see no reason to change. And, although I am not trying to be the voice in the wilderness, I would like to make a recommendation.

If you have things you want to accomplish and yet have little time to do so, take a look at where you want to go and what you want to do. Try to figure out what is important for you to do, and what can be put aside. Sometimes the things we think we cannot do without, are the ones we have to set aside momentarily to make way for the larger endeavors.

With your permission, and please comment one way or the other, I would like to tell you a little bit more about what I do during this week. Some of my work might help, I would be glad to share it with you.

Until tomorrow, Have a great day.

 

 

 

 

From the Inside Out

Have you ever considered why sometimes no matter how much you try you just cannot get the results you are looking for? You feel that no matter what you do there is so much else in the way that you end up not doing anything? To accomplish something, you have to do the right thing. Maybe it’s a good idea to start by looking at what you need to do and stack it up against what you want to do.

We are not just one thing or another. We are human beings, and we are a conglomeration of everything that affects us. To do good work, we need to work from the inside out.

If I don’t sleep well, my work suffers. If I am worrying about everything all the time, my work suffers. If my house and yard are a mess, my work suffers. I need to remove those things that cause my work to suffer, and I need to enhance whatever makes my work thrive.

Does this mean I can’t work at all until everything else in my life is perfect? If we waited for perfection, none of us would ever get any work done. Nothing or at least very little in life is perfect. You have to strike a balance.

I may not be able to do full work while healing from an operation, complete the spring cleaning, or rearrange my schedule to get a full night’s sleep. I could, though, break my work up into bite-sized bits that I could handle.

Maybe I start out by just taking one hour in figuring out a plan of what I need to work on. Maybe I’m planning a new book. Maybe I’m writing a blog. Maybe I am painting a new painting. Whatever it is I just take time and draw a map or timeline, remembering to provide enough time and research to complete the project. If I’m painting a painting, maybe the next day I just put an outline on the canvas. If I am writing a book, maybe I sit down at the computer and just list some of the major events.

If I am writing a book, maybe a start off within the week by writing a sentence. And the next day I write two sentences. The idea is to build slowly until I can write between 500 to a thousand words for the book in a day. My time is still on working from the inside out to take care of me, to take care of around my surroundings, and to take care of my work.

Everything will not become perfection. Yet, what I will find this a sense of equilibrium. This is an equilibrium where the inner me is in balance with my surroundings and my surroundings give me the ability to better perform my work.

I wish I could tell you exactly how to do certain steps in a certain order to accomplish this. I will work on that for you if you wish. Although, I must tell you that every person and every situation is different. And each of us needs to be responsible for ourselves and seek our own way.

Look forward to talking again tomorrow.

 

Collaberate Within

Good morning.

I have a great question for you this morning. What have you done lately for the person in the mirror?

Have you sat down and had an honest talk with the person? That’s right, the one in the mirror.

In here worried that somebody is going to consider you certifiable when they find you talking to that person in the mirror, do when you’re alone. Do it in the morning when you first get up, or in the evening before you go to bed. Point is to compare with that person and do it often.

Why? Only you truly know how you feel. Only you really know what you think. And only you, are the person who can make this happen, for you.

Yes, to make things happen on the follow-through, you need to reach out to everyone you can think of who may be a stakeholder or part of what you want to do and where you want to go. Only you can start the way and keep the ball rolling and be the primary guide through its journey to a successful conclusion.

Everybody has people who can help them. Sometimes when you start doing even know who those people are going to be. Yet, they are out there, and as you open up about your work, you will find them and sometimes they will find you. The thing is if you’re not out there trying, they will not know to come to your basement and seek you out.

You need to go forth in good faith and demonstrate the path you walk. For as you do, you will find many footsteps both seen and unseen walking with you.

Initial Momentum

Good morning.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I was able to get out in my yard and trimmed back all the invasive bushes some of which had gained a good 6 feet and thought they were going to be trees.

It is incredible how we can be stymied by so many things to do. So many things that we can’t get anything done. And yet the piles still grow and grow. And then all of a sudden, one small piece of serendipity, a break in the calendar of things to do, or something else happens, and we can suddenly be swamped doing everything that had us crying uncle just a few days before.  Truth is the initial momentum to start moving something takes more energy than that needed to keep it in motion.

Because of that three extra hours that kicked everything off, this week I have a meeting with the tax lady to complete her taxes, and a procedure on Thursday. One of those procedures for people over 50 that we have to prep for. Well for a little bit I guess we have to be careful of what we wish for. In this case, though everything is indeed a blessing to be able to get it done.

I recommend that everybody look for that small break, that one thing that can get you started. Once you are started, you can go as far as you want to. My idea: never stop.  After all, it takes less energy to keep something moving than to start it moving in the first place.

 

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