Aging in Wonder

Most people talk excitedly about the New Year as a new beginning, a fresh new start. For some reason, I haven’t been able to get into it this year.

Maybe it’s because I’m always making promises I don’t keep, and it gets old after awhile. Why make year-long resolutions when I’m not fulfilling my week-long promises?

I heard one man say he hesitated to make resolutions for things he should already be doing. I tend to agree with him.

Others advise you not to make resolutions; set goals instead. I agree with them, too. Read more…

Attitudes, Work Goals, Impulses, New Year, Resolutions, Time Management

This is a continuation of a 3-Act Play. See Act 1, “The Conflict,” and Act 2 “The Consultant and the Boss”

Productivity Consultant:

Boss-Cheryl, I trust you’ve worked this week on being more aware of Cheryl’s time and energy restraints. And Employee-Cheryl, I hope you appreciate the changes that Boss-Cheryl is willing to make on your behalf.

This is how you can help her.

1. Budget your time like you budget your money.

I know you’re a Dave Ramsey fan, and you use his envelope system well. You decide what you’ll spend on groceries, clothing, fuel and entertainment, then you stick the cash in an envelope. You know that when the envelope’s empty, the buying is finished.

However, there’s an important difference between income and time: Income can grow; time is static. Read more…

Self-Discipline, Work Attitude, Blogging, Choices, Time Management, Writing

Act 2: The Consultant and the Boss

See Act 1, “The Conflict,” where Self-Employee-Cheryl rebels against the work schedule that Boss-Cheryl has set for her, while also complaining of interference in her personal life.

Productivity Consultant:

As usual, both of you bear some blame for this conflict between work schedules and personal life. I’ll address my first comments to you, Boss, because it seems you have some unrealistic expectations.

1. First, purge your to-do list.

You add things to Cheryl’s duties that just pop into your head. Sometimes they’re not necessary or even helpful. But you know that once it’s on that list, it nags and nags at her.

Worse, you make her use an Outlook reminder that pops up and reminds her of what she hasn’t done. Just “as the LORD gives and the LORD takes away” – since you put it on that list, you can take it off! Read more…

Self-Discipline, Work Attitude, Blogging, Choices, Time Management, Writing

Act 1: The Conflict

Employee:

I wish my boss would get off my back.

Sure, she schedules me for only 26 hours of work a week. And when I want to go off on a trip somewhere, all I have to do is give her a couple of weeks’ notice. Oh, yes, she also provides health insurance.

But she’s put this schedule on my desk, telling me which hours to work, when to take lunch, even when to do my housework.

She tells me that if I want to have any personal time in the morning, I must get up at 5:30, be dressed and ready to walk at 7:00, eat breakfast and be at my desk by 8:30.

And those items on the To-Do List she keeps piling on?! What an unreasonable, insensitive nag!

Well, I’ll show her! I’m taking a break and playing a game of FreeCell! Then I’m going to the kitchen for a snack.

Boss:

Go ahead! Play your games. Eat your apple.

But don’t come complaining to me that you’re behind schedule on two of your three blogs, your family reunion commitments, and following up on another possible paying job. Read more…

Self-Discipline, Work Attitude, Blogging, Decisions, Time Management, Writing

When my children lived at home, they heard that often from me.

I would use the phrase when they would complain about having to do something that was a result of a choice they had made.

They didn’t want to do homework after soccer practice because they were too tired? Well, “life is full of choices. You may not have a choice about the homework, but you had a choice about the soccer.”

Too tired on Saturday morning to help with the housework because they stayed up watching a late movie on TV? “Well, that was your choice, and you have to live with the consequences.”

They heard the phrase from their mean ol’ Mama so often, it became an acronym: L-I-F-O-C. Read more…

Attitudes, Choice Choices, Decisions, List, Time Management