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.

So this is my suggestion: Your time schedule is a good start. Now, start looking at the time segments she has created as “envelopes of time.”

When your morning work segment has come to an end, that “time envelope” is empty – and you must move on to the housework segment. Be ruthless at first. Of course, you may have to adjust the schedule when you’re working directly with clients, but at least you’ll learn what’s practical.

2. Schedule a no-screen day each week – which means the computer is off all day.

Your boss doesn’t expect you to work every day. In fact, she doesn’t think it’s good for you.

Remember those computer-free Sundays you had for a while? Remember how peaceful they were? How you moved around the house, read, tidied up, took a walk, or called one of your kids? Remember that great Sunday-night Jane Austen series on Masterpiece Theater you watched? Remember how refreshed you felt on Monday morning?

You’ve fallen back into the habit of saving your writing tasks until Sunday afternoon. Then you feel like a martyr because it seems like you never get a break.

3. This may sound harsh, but you’re an embezzler.

It’s not money: it’s worse than money. You embezzle time, which can’t be replaced. You think you can steal a little here, a little there, thinking you can put it back later. But those minutes – those hours – are irreplaceable. You can never put them back.

That’s why sometimes when you get to the end of the day, you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything!

To Both of You: Recognize your priorities, and plan for interruptions.

As Cindy pointed out in her comment on Life Is Full of Choices, “The hardest part…is dealing with delays you didn’t cause — like sickness, or losing a family member you love. That can put you in a black hole not of your own choosing.”

The fact that these incidents cause delays means you know what’s really most important: Your relationships.

You realize that your business, your busy-ness, and any income that comes as a result, are merely means to an end. It means you can be a giver rather than a receiver; it means you can travel to see your grandbabies. It means you’re doing what you can to prevent being a burden to your children as you age.

When “life happens,” you’ll wish you had back the time you had wasted, you’ll wish you had finished your projects early and paid more attention to the people that are important to you.

Wrapping It Up

Make peace with your selves.

Boss, be aware of Employee’s limitations before you make a decision that involves her.

Employee, don’t you feel good, now that you’ve finished not one, not two, but three blogs this week?

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!

2. Count the cost before agreeing to a project.

Remember your friend Kelly? As I remember, she had an impressive “house rule.” Because of limited storage in her house, she persuaded her family to think twice about every purchase. With every book, pair of jeans or piece of furniture that came into the house, an older one needed to leave.

In the same way, Cheryl’s time is limited. When you make an eight-hour commitment for her, what activity will you remove from her life? Sleep? Play? Exercise? Time with her friends and family?

Count the cost before you make promises she must keep. It will give you a more productive employee. (By the way, it wouldn’t hurt you to try that “tossing out” thing.)

3. Be aware of energy constraints.

Cheryl doesn’t have unlimited time. At her age (!), she doesn’t have unlimited energy, either. Give her only the responsibilities that are worthy of her energy.

Your friend Mitzi touched on this when she commented on the Life Is Full of Choices post. “If I expend the energy to do something, I want it to have, at least somewhat, lasting value (which is why I don’t do housework.) My time and energy are limited and I would like it to have made at least a little bit of difference when I have no more.”

Productivity Consultant:

That should give you something to work on this week. I’ll be back on Friday to see how it’s going.

Don’t think I’ve let you off the hook, Cheryl-Employee.  Between now and Friday, you need to work on your attitude. Maybe then you’ll be ready to hear what else I have to say.

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.

Don’t complain to me because your kitchen’s a mess, and once again, you’re getting your food to the Community Center on Friday afternoon just in the nick of time before it closes.

Sure! Go ahead! Check the latest messages on Facebook! Read every e-mail the minute it pops up. Follow every link that looks remotely interesting. You can always do your work later!

And I hear you’ve made plans to be gone most of the day on Saturday. Just when are you going to do all the work you’ve put off ‘til then?

Oh, by the way. While you were out, your daughter called. Looks like her baby may be coming earlier than planned.

Employee: Oh, no! I’m not ready! And she told you instead of me?

I can’t believe how you interfere in my personal life. I demand we call in someone to sort this out. It’s not working.

Boss: You’re right. And I know just the person. A Productivity Consultant.

Employee: Is she someone I can trust?

Boss: I think so! She’s you!

Who do you think is at fault here? What advice do you expect Productivity Consultant-Cheryl to give?

Come back on Wednesday for Act 2, in which Productivity Consultant-Cheryl advises Boss-Cheryl and Employee-Cheryl on ways they can resolve this conflict.

Your email:

 

Someone (Hm-m-m!) once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Good advice for a blog, as well, don’t you think? So this morning, in the interests of giving this blog some focus (while also procrastinating),  I have examined the topics and frequency of previous blogs.

Blog frequency? Two at the end of May, eleven in June, four in July, one in August. The frequency has obviously fallen off.

Topics? Six essays on aging, five on nature and other observations, four on attitude, two on health, and one on family.

Therefore, to

1. increase blog frequency,
2. create accountability,
3. address niche issues (aging well with grace, wisdom, wonder and joy) and
4. also have fun writing about subjects that catch my fancy,

I am publishing the following editorial calendar for all the world to see. (So far, that’s a world of 10 people who have left comments, 35 “unique visitors” and 30 spammers.)

Mondays: Posts about Aging: health, diet, exercise, attitude, etc.

Wednesday: Pop-up Proverbs. My intention is not to look for these, hence the term “Pop-up.” But if they were to pop up in an e-mail from a reader (that’s a hint), it would count. In lieu of pop-ups, there’s always Grandma’s Little Notebook of Sayings.

Friday: Cook’s Choice. This means personal essays, musings about sharks, snails, storms or other (self-defined) insightful observations.

Talk to me: What do you think? Still too broad? Too self-serving? If so, what type of articles would be more helpful and/or entertaining? Book reviews? Cultural commentary?

Anyone out there?

Learning how to develop this blog has been – and is – great fun. Discovering anything new has always made my brain feel good.

As most of us know, if you want Internet-related help these days, you ask somebody younger. In developing this blog, my help has come from a son, a son-in-law and virtual blogging mentors. I have been amazed at the amount of free instruction they make available to anyone who wants to learn.

So, appropriately, I want to express my appreciation to:

• My Number Two Son, who advised me long ago to use WordPress, patiently answers my technical questions – all the way from Bangkok – and has never made me feel like it was too difficult for me to learn.
• Favorite Son-in-Law (graphic designer in Nashville) who customized the photo in the header. (The photo, by the way is from PD Photo.org.)

Then there are Daniel, Seth, Gideon and Lori, who all live somewhere on the Internet.

• I’ve been receiving updates from Daniel Scocco at Daily Blog Tips for months now. I don’t always understand the material he covers, but little by little, the vocabulary is becoming familiar. Through Daily Blog Tips, I met…

• Seth Waite, of  Blogging Agenda, whose “How to Start a Blog” series is just what I was looking for: a step-by-step, day-by-day guide to professional blogging.

• Through Seth I discovered Gideon Shalwick at Become a Blogger, whose video tutorials provided the technical instructions I needed to launch the blog, using WordPress as a publishing platform and design source; Name Cheap for domain name registration; Host Gator as a web host; and FileZilla for FTP software. If you need to learn what all this means, link to their sites. They’ll tell you.

While these guys provided technical know-how, without realizing it,

• Writer Lori Widmer and her 2^nd Annual Writers Worth Day motivated me to stop doing what I dreaded every day: Bidding for writing, editing, and proofreading jobs on an impersonal, competitive, I-win-at-your-expense internet job board. When I discovered her network of supportive, professional, self-respecting writers, I knew it’s where I wanted to be.

Thank you, my young mentors.

Let’s talk about it. I know we all learn from our young children – especially that patience thing. What have you learned from younger adults?