21
Aug
Well it’s not little but I do have a black book. A Moleskine to be more precise. I use what they call the Squared Notebook – Large and it looks pretty much like this:
Moleskine
I use this book to keep track of my work life. I usually don’t put stuff about home into it unless it is something I have to take care of from the office. However this book, and the method I use, keep me from getting off track at work and let me manage my time quite nicely. The system I am using now is slightly different than the one I used at my last job but is the same system modified for the environment at current job. Most jobs are not as strange work-flow-wise as my current job so I while I will describe what I am doing now this post is about the system I modified and not my modifications.
First and foremost this system involves writing. There is psychological component to writing things down, and I mean putting pen to paper, that helps people remember things. This component doesn’t exist when typing or keeping notes on a PDA/cell phone/MID. So while I am a geek with an always on connection, a cell phone that can be wireless router, and plenty of online tools I still keep a notebook and everyone I have convinced to try this method is still keeping their notebook. The basic method is nothing more than making a daily task/to-do list and taking notes. This is done like so:
- Use two pages per day, facing pages so that you have both pages open when your notebook is on your desk.
- Every morning copy the tasks from the prior day’s task list to the new day’s task list on. I prefer the right hand page for this because it’s where your eyes naturally fall.
- Prioritize your task list. I use arrows to do this: Up is high priority, down is low priority, left is medium priority.
- Under the task list, leaving room to add more tasks, make any notes you need to accomplish your tasks.
- The left hand page is for taking notes during the day and keeping track of time if you are required to do so.
That’s it. That’s the whole system in a nutshell. It takes discipline to do this every morning but if you do you’ll end up knowing how much bandwidth you have and you’ll always know what’s on your plate. This is handy for when your boss pops in to your cube and says “I need X done right away”. You can glance at your book and reply: “I can do that but Y and Z will have to be put off and I may miss those deadlines”. Keeping track of everything you have to do is daunting at first but the task list shouldn’t be little day to day stuff, that’s what notes are for. It shouldn’t be pieces of projects but the whole project. Your notes are where you keep your progress for any given project. The task list is a 5,000 ft overview so to speak. If you try to keep a list of every phone call you need to make and every e-mail you need to send you’ll drive yourself crazy and use a lot more than two pages a day.
My current job doesn’t lend itself to a daily list as such. Most of what I do is long term projects with shifting priority and sprinkled with short term tasks that crop up day to day. Doing the day to day was not working out well since everything is so dynamic. So I keep a weekly notebook of sorts. I have a task list that is copied every two pages but it might take three days to fill up two pages. My task list doesn’t grow rapidly and some things won’t fall off or be completed for months. So I make a master task list every two pages and take notes as needed. This is efficient for the way the work-flow at this job comes down the pipe. I do make a new master list every Monday whether I need it or not, mark that page with a post-it flag, and copy any relevant notes. Of course this is mostly because our team meetings are on Monday. If the team meetings were another day I would probably start a new section on that day instead.
While this system is dead simple don’t let that fool you. Sometimes the simple and easy things are what we need to manage our time. In this day and age it seems strange to keep a notebook but don’t worry about that. Trust me when I tell you that writing things down will help you remember them and that keeping a notebook will change the way you think about your available time. This system pretty much saved my arse before I got diagnosed with ADD and started taking medication for it. And furthermore it helps me not get hyperfocused on any one task now that I can actually focus on things. I know I said I don’t keep things about my home-life in my notebook except for minor exceptions but I do buy the three packs of squared, cardboard cover, Cahier Journals for home projects and the like. When you have a project at home that will be done over time this system can really help you sort out how long it will take and how to best arrange your time to get it done. You don’t have to buy Moleskine although I do recommend it simply due to their quality. You’ll notice the links on here don’t contain any sort of affiliate code or anything so my recommendation is simply that. They are good quality notebooks.
There you have it. My first post on life management. I know it’s kind of more like what I said I wasn’t going rather than my struggles to get my life in order but you’ll notice through the post that this notebooking system is soemthing that allowed me to get my work life in order and be much better at my job and much better at planning. I sort of present the solution here and not much of the problem but trust me the problem was huge for me. I hope that some of you get some of you find this useful.
Departing, utterly and completely, from my being overwhelmed by the hideous weight of the holidays and having done so before Christmas eve was over I have been reading a bit. I have been reading one of my favorite modern commentators on Christianity. He’s not well known even in Christian circles but he should be. Nevertheless Tony Woodlied published two articles recently that covered subjects on which I have been known to have an opinion. (And if you know me you know what that means!). One I will write another post about because it deserves treatment of it’s own and the other is the reason I am posting here.
First: some history on how we have always treated Christmas in the Potter household. I have never told my children there was a Santa Claus. We play the myth and even give gifts from Santa but we always stressed that it is just fantasy. The older children have even been known to correct adults on the subject. (I have no idea where they got the idea that they should correct people!) We do read Santa stories and enjoy the game but it has always been known to be fantasy. The oldest three are certain there is no Santa, the middle child is pretty sure there is despite what we have said, the three year old is unsure of may things including the reality of Santa and the youngest two are not of age to really believe in anything much.
Today I have decided to change how we deal with Santa. I did so after reading this article by Tony. Here’s a brief snippet:
I know Caleb and his brothers will figure out the Santa secret eventually, but I’m with Chesterton in resisting the elevation of science and reason to the exclusion of magic, of mystery, of faith. That’s why I’m not giving up on Santa without a fight. Not everything we believe, I explain to Caleb, can be proved (or disproved) by science. We believe in impossible things, and in unseen things, beginning with our own souls and working outward. It’s a delicate thing, preparing him to let go of Santa without simultaneously embracing the notion that only what can be detected by the five senses is real.
Tony hits me twice in this article with men I respect and turn to when the mysteries inherent in Christianty have my spinning: GK Chesterton and CS Lewis so he gets points on that alone. His reasoning behind not killing the myth for your children hit me like a brick. I had never thought about Santa from angle in which he is presented by Tony and I found myself in agreement. My lovely wife pointed out that we don’t tell the children that their imaginary friends (or in Sinead’s case “madge friends”) aren’t real. While Michelle doesn’t necessarily agree with me on the Santa decision she is willing to walk down this road with me (that alone is worth mentioning because she is always willing to go down whatever road I choose) (Or maybe she is just willing to give me enough rope to hang myself).
I have called the oldest three over and let them know we won’t be correcting the youngest four on the subject anymore and used the beautiful example of imaginary friends with them. They all agreed and next year there will be much Santa myth in the Potter household.
I told Michelle that if they asked that we wouldn’t lie. That we would answer completely honestly: Santa Claus is the anthropomorphization of the Christmas Spirit. Her only caveat was that if one of our children and pronounce “anthropomophization” that we would just go ahead and tell them the truth. Otherwise the simple explanation is that “Santa is the Spirit of Christmas” when they can’t grasp the whole concept of anthropomorphization. I think it’s a good caveat if only because I will get to hear at least four of my beautiful children pronounce anthropomorphization. 
As an aside and only related tangentially: Ever since I learned about the real Saint Nicholas – Bishop of Myra the scene Tony Mentions: Father Christmas appears in Narnia as the White Witch’s spell is breaking: “‘I’ve come at last,’” says Santa. “‘She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last.’” I don’t see a jolly fellow dressed in red with a belly full of jelly. I see the same grim determination that must have been on his face as he crossed a room in 325 to slap the heretic Arius across the face. I see that scene as a triumph and the man making that statement as a man who had never given up trying to get into Narnia after the White Witch cast he awful spell. I don’t know, it just seems right to me.
And the last aside is thus: Many of my friends either commented on my note publicly, sent me private messages, or called me. Normally this has little effect on the Mark-Potter-Patented-Christmas-Funk-That-May-Be-Worse-Than-Tom’s but this year some of your words actually made a difference. This year I was pulled back from the brink. Not soon enough to kill some of my wife’s joy (and for that I am sorry) during our attendance of her family’s Christmas Eve event but enough to bring me back from the brink prior to Christmas Eve being over. You may never all know who you are but I am grateful. I have wonderful friends and a wonderful family. Thank you all and I hope that you all had an amazing Christmas I know I did.
26
Dec
As any of you who have known me for any length of time can attest: the holidays are not a great time for me. I have, in the past been petty about the whole affair. From the commercialization to the attitudes on shoppers the season had lost its luster for me.
Then there came the bad blood between my youngest sister and me. I will not go into that or anywhere else but suffice to say it exists. So it has been years since I was able to see my family on Christmas day or eve for that matter. Michelle’s family stresses me out even though it seems that after eight years they might have finally accepted my oldest children and me. For instance: one year her grandmother was giving people hugs before she left. She hugged on of Michelle’s brothers, looked at me, and hugeed the next person on her way out of the house. I don’t care how much they like or respect me now that behavior still hurt and not once did anyone apologize nor will they. Don’t get me wrong her brothers and Granny are great.
So why did I finally succumb to the old feelings I have fought so hard against? One may wonder…
Well in the midst of all this was always the Christmas party at Lee and Sarah’s house on Christmas eve. I have been doing that since before my oldest child was born. This year Michelle’s mom is having the family gathering on Christmas eve in the evening, I have to work, and Granny won’t even be there. So I have to work Christmas eve, not even at the office, drive 60+ miles to her mom’s house (where I won’t get to see the person I look forward to the most), and if I get there on time have Christmasb dinner, open gifts, then drive 30 miles to a party that’s halfway (if not more) over.
Christmas day we have awesome plans. (Thanks Chris!) But we are also broke so the presents the kids get to open were a shock even to me as two co-workers bought all the kids gifts. I am looking forward to Christmas dinner but after that it’s back home and a doc appointment the next day.
So it boils down to this: I have to skip most of my tradition to hang out with people who may or may not like me after working all day and I don’t get to see my family at all. The only bright spot is Christmas dinner with the Stelhorn clan.
I managed to not dread Christmas pretty much since Thanksgiving. I held it in check. That all fell apart when they told I had to work at the datacenter tomorrow. I hadn’t even been upset about missing most of the party or not seeing my family. Straw that broke the camel’s back and all that…
And baby you know I love you with everything I am but given a choice I would go to the party.
Well it’s going to be an official counseling. I know I am not on the road to being fired. Too much invested. They want me to be successful. I just have to start thinking like a consultant and not like a customer service representative. It’s going to be a major shift in my thinking to be honest.I can handle it. I am changing so much right now I think I can work this one in.
I am changing the way I think about money, changing the way we school the kids, changing the way I handle going to church, one more change shouldn’t be an issue. I think I am in a state of flux right now. Some sort of weird fugue state without the memory loss. I feel the changes. It’s uncomfortable to be honest to but the changes are for the best.
I know I haven’t been lighthearted lately and likely won’t. I have a lot of things to work out. I need a space in which to work them out and this is it. All those uncomfortable feelings associated with change, the panic, and so on. The dysfunctional personality who knows what needs to change and tries hard not to change anything.
I need to stop going out. I need to stay clear during these changes. I need to slip back into Warcraft as an alternative or get the bitter geek to throw a game or play poker (once we get money worked out). Going out leaves my head cloudy for a couple of days and every time as of late I have come home thinking not about what a great time I had but about how much I should stop. This is a huge change for me. This is huge for me to admit stone cold sober and not hungover in the least. I think this will be the hardest change overall. It may be easy in the short term but making it happen long term may be problematic. I can pull back when I need to short term but long term I always end up going out again. I don’t mean every once in a while but on a regular basis. I can always go out every once in a while. I don’t need to go out on a regular basis. I need to find more happiness at home and not outside of the house. I like my friends and when I say going out I don’t mean going to people’s homes.
Wow that was long and probably mostly pointless. Maybe there is some insight into what I am thinking for those who might say a prayer for me.
You know getting ready to humker down for a storm is painfully boring thing. I have work from home stuff to do but that’s boring. It’s the anticipation that kill you. I am going to need to see if my bar is open tonight so I can be properly ready when Ike makes landfall. I am kidding of course, I think.
The kids have decided to push back and are not obeying anything. Bad time for that for them to pull that. I am handing out groundings for a week or longer because they need to shape up. The rebelled against momma all week and I am not standing for it. If we end up having to hunker down here without power for more than a day I need them in line and not screwing up. We aren’t playing games right now. As much as I don’t seem concerned, and I am really not, this is a serious situation and if I turn out to be wrong I can’t have insubordination running rampant through my children.
On a happy note I have a ton of music I can listen to, the cable modem has a battery, and we have three laptops with fully charged batteries. So if the internat comes back up before the lights I can still get online and in the meantime use the laptops to play music when things get too mind-numbingly boring.
Of course all the local channels are doing storm coverage which sucks. All it does it get people scared. I checked and Alicia didn’t flood this neighborhood and we aren’t in the area that will be affected by the surge and we will likely get only tropical storm force winds so the only worry we have is electricity. I don’t think we will really have the lights out for long.
As for food we have a ton of non-perishables and I splugred and bought fun snacks because if we do have to use the food to survive at least it will be a break in the boredom. As you can see my biggest worry is boredom at this point, I plan to fight it tooth and nail if I have to.
I did get word from work that if I don’t have power I am not expected to fly out on Sunday even if the airports are open. I doubt my flight will even be available if they are open. Anyway there’s a post…it ain’t much of one…but it’s a post…
