Work Unplugged

I don’t like to bring my laptop home from work because work should not come home. Friday, however, I needed to work the afternoon at home and so I had it home this weekend. I knew Sunday night that I was in danger of forgetting it, so I sat it on the chair next to my bed. However, I forgot my family would be sleeping in, as it was a holiday for them. I didn’t want to wake them, so I left the lights off as I got ready. I realized halfway to work I had forgotten the computer. For some reason, the bus driver didn’t want to turn around. My wife wasn’t able to break away to bring me the laptop until 11:00.

This little experience turned into an interesting experiment for me. Could I survive the morning as an IT manager without a computer. Granted, on some days, this would have been a major problem. Today, however, it wasn’t. I didn’t have any meetings. I had a mail-enabled phone, so I could read and respond to email, although at a slower rate. I spent the morning doing tasks on my list that didn’t require a computer.

It was a very productive morning. I got a lot of old tasks off the list. I did a mind sweep. I did some brainstorming. I even spent some time visiting with some people to get information first hand. I was almost sad when the laptop arrived and returned me to the land of the ‘plugged-in’.

I think it can be a valuable thing to ‘unplug’ once in awhile. Turn off the computer, put it away, resist that urge to turn it on. I found by doing email on my phone, I wrote more succinctly because it is harder to type. That has the side benefit of saving time for the receiver as well. Give it a shot. Let me know how it works for you.

A lesson I need to learn

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” – Voltaire

I found this on the Happiness Project. I had heard this quote many times, but didn’t know where it came from. If Gretchen did her homework (and I believe she does), then I finally know. Regardless, this is becoming my mantra.

I find myself staring at projects all the time, afraid to start because it won’t meet my expectations. I suffer from the drive that everything must be perfect. I don’t know why. I have been talking to people about it and we haven’t come up with the answer yet.

I really like this post from Gretchen. It resonates with me. I tried it today. I had a project I had been dreading for quite awhile. Today I just started. I didn’t expect to finish it or even make much headway. And I didn’t.

But I did get started and that is enough for me. I just needed the space to say it is in flight and that it doesn’t have to be perfect. Sometimes I think Stephen Covey’s “begin with the end in mind” is not a good place for me. I can image up all kinds of perfect ends. I get the end so perfectly in mind I don’t know how to start. Sometimes I need to just begin.

And so I did. And it felt good.

Decisions, decisions…

We had dinner tonight with some friends we had lost touch with for several years. We didn’t mean to drift apart. It just happened. Life gets busy, you don’t talk for a few months and then it almost becomes embarrasing. How do you reconnect again after years have gone by.

In our case, we reconnected because my daughter said we should. The family came up at the breakfast table. She scolded me for keeping usconnected. I took it to heart and called them the same day to see if they would come over for dinner. They accepted and I was surprised to hear even all of their kids, including one in college, were excited to get back together.

I was wondering how the kids would react, would they still have anything in common after all the years? Within 15 minutes of their arrival, they all went into the other room to talk and left us adults to ourselves. They were the ones dragging their heels when it came time to go. I was pleasently surprised. We vowed not to let another 4 years go by.

So what does this have to do with passion? I helped (in a very small way) push my friend to start his own business when he was laid off from his job several years ago. He was scared, like I am now, but he did it. He had found his passion and had the clientbase that believed in him, so it was an easy transition to doing it for himself instead of for someone else. Fast forward years later, he is very successful and enjoying the fruits of his labor. I am proud to know him and call him a friend.

And I learned something tonight about him. He is as indecisive and incapable of making a decision as I am. To listen to his wife describe it, he and I could be twins in this department. It was very comforting to me to hear that about someone I admire greatly and wish to emulate.

I have worried about my inability to make decisions quickly to be a major obstacle to having my own company. Now, hearing about his identical problem helps me think it may not be so impossible for me. It helps put that little fear to rest. I know it is something I am going to have to be aware of and work to overcome.

I will have to remember to look at the options and just make a decision. In most cases, it doesn’t matter that much and often can be corrected or adjusted in flight.

The search for… perfection????

Well, it seems my first roadblock is my being a perfectionist. Every day since my last post, I have said, “I need to sit down and write something.” I have even sat down, booted the computer and… played mah jong, solitaire, anything to keep from writing. I was thinking about that today. I think my problem is I want it to be perfect.

I read a few blogs regularly and those people always have such great posts. They are concise, well, written and enjoyable. Some go places I wouldn’t go myself, but they interesting. Some I read regularly because they help me understand myself better.

Like the Great Oz said, I need to quit reading about life and starting doing something. I was reading a book last night about job hunting and said to myself, I need to put this down and actually organize my network contact list, like the chapter I am reading says. But, my wife was using the laptop, I didn’t have my list in a convenient place to reorganize and I hadn’t figured out how I wanted it to look yet. So I kept reading. I can talk myself out of just about anything worthwhile. I think the Great Oz knows me pretty well.

So, after my wife was done with the computer tonight, I took the computer to write a couple quick email before bed. I kept saying, “I need to post something.” Well, here I am, tossing something off because I want to make this into a habit and there is no other way besides writing.

I can’t make this perfect. It has to be messy. It has to be a search, and searches are not structured or clean. My first assignment to myself is a free write on passion. A free write is something I picked up in college a few years ago (the second time I went, not the first). The idea is to take the topic, set a timer and put whatever comes to mind on the paper (or keyboard, in this case). Punctuation, spelling and formatting are not important. The goal is to put as many words onto paper as possible. Stream of concious thought is the desire. No editing is allowed after the fact. It is a peek into your mind. That can be scary, if it is an honest free write. Well, tomorrow. That is what I will do. Right after I fix my bike tire, start making a couple pens and perhaps a few games of mah jong. Ouch! I can feel the Great Oz beating me.