Ten days here, too

It's rare that I can post the same thing on my personal and business blogs, but here's what I have to say today. Apologies if this is more non-business information than you care to read. (For crying out loud, you've been looking at photos of the trees around our driveway. You can handle this.)

As of the end of the Texas Rangers game last night (they won, BTW, though two of their four runs were forced; poor Reds pitcher…), I have ten days without any appointments or meetings or places to be at specific times. Ten days. Nowhere to be.

Well, okay, I have SNB on Thursday, if I want to go, and we'll be doing something on July 3rd, whether Kaboom Town in Addison (at the invitation and office of my fellow Dallas Stars Season Ticket Holder Council member, Gary Ludwig) or at Southlake's Stars and Stripes celebration. That's what we usually do, and I should be there to scope out some new Town-Square-event ideas (they're using food trucks this year!) for Oktoberfest. But our fantastic event planner has agreed to check that out for us, so I'm actually free to go to Gary's do.

If I want. I don't have to go. Anywhere. At all. No, not even to church, because White's Chapel UMC cancels the service I go to (the Founder's Chapel service, aka the Redheaded Stepchild service) at the drop of a hat, especially around holidays like Independence Day.

So it's sleeping 'til I wake up, catching up on laundry, cleaning (the dust bunnies are starting to show signs of life), wading through Oktoberfest stuff and blogging. Lots and lots of blogging. The last few weeks have perfectly illustrated my need to have some blog entries completed and standing by. There are simply going to be periods when my schedule won't allow me to sit down and write anything just for myself. Like most of the 99 days between now and the end of Oktoberfest, for example.

Just a bit of added content for the business blog: My inbox actually got better between the last post and today, but it's once again gotten away from me.

I was going to wait 'til it got to 1,000 unread to do that screen capture, but I need to go change the sheets and sort some laundry and stuff.

See you back here soon, with some actual intelligent business-related content. Promise!

Sorry!

Sorry for disappearing for a while. Oktoberfest meetings, Chamber meetings, errands, and…really, why the heck have I been so busy? Huh. Listing it like that, it doesn't sound like I should be so slammed, but here's the way it's actually been the last few days:

Yes, that's 724 unread messages.

I'm seriously considering just deleting everything and starting over. If it's important, they'll write back, right?

(Sorry. Actual intelligent content later.)

Good quotes, or tricks for getting things done

I keep a file in Smart Notes of good quotes. I have quite a few, and I add to it pretty regularly. I try to read through it occasionally because, well, otherwise, why am I keeping it?

This one speaks to me right now:

Let this be an example for the acquisition of all knowledge, virtue, and riches. By the fall of drops of water, by degrees, a pot is filled. — The Hitopadesa

Some days, the best I can do is about a drop. Nice to think it adds up.

This also inspires me:

No obstacle will ever leave you the way it found you. — Anonymous

And these caution me:

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. — Kin Hubbard (1868-1930)

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

But this is the one that I find I really have to hold on to sometimes:

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment. — Robert Benchley, "How to Get Things Done" (from The Algonquin Wits & others)

Robert Benchley
Photo from biography.com

There are days when I the one thing I cannot face doing is the thing that has a deadline about to slap me in the face. As Benchley discusses in his essay, sometimes the best way to get it done is to take the pressure off and put it on something else. Say, for example, I have to write an article about networking. I may start it with the best intentions, but will soon find myself sidetracked into something completely unrelated, such as tidying up my office.

If, though, I can convince myself that I really and truly have to get my office cleaned up before I can do any work, I'll drag out the Endust and a file storage box, set them down and—before I even realize it—get to work on the networking article. At that point, of course, I'm telling myself that I'll be able to focus on cleaning once I bang out that article real quick. And so it goes.

Do you have any tricks (or tips) for resisting procrastination?

Write this down

They're means they are. Their means it belongs to them. There means that spot.
You're means you are. Your means it belongs to you.
Then means at some time. Than compares something to another thing.
Its means something that belongs to it. It's means it is.
Loose means is roaming around. Lose is when you can't find it.

And, very importantly, Dallas and Fort Worth are not separate cities. Well, they are two different cities, but they're not separate. They're they larger parts of the DFW Metroplex, a 6.6 million-person collection of smaller towns and cities.

One big city. Not Dallas and "out west."

So stop being ignorant and naive about it, 'kay?

Photo from TexasFreeway.com.

Prices, or I'm easy AND cheap

Here lately, every single time I give someone an estimate for some work, they immediately say, "Sure!" or "You're on," or "Let's move ahead with it," without hesitating. Does that mean I need to raise my prices?

Just once, I'd like someone to say, "Is that the best you can do?" or "Oh, we'll have to think about that."

Cheap. And I thought I was just easy.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Guess where better ideas come from

I've been noticing an interesting phenomenon lately. I'm Co-Chair of the Southlake Chamber of Commerce Oktoberfest. It's a very large event that takes, basically, year-round planning.* We employ an event management company, and we used the same very good, very efficient company for years. This year we have a new planner, The Dallas Directory. In the few months we've been working together, they've had some really great ideas, have all kinds of good suggestions, and have us all excited about this year's event. My co-chair and I comment regularly on what a good choice they are, and what a big difference they're making.

Another important part of Oktoberfest planning is the smart and helpful Jill Lind, Tourism Marketing Manager from the City of Southlake. She's a real asset for Oktoberfest, and is also just about to have a baby. Since she'll be out for a few months, she's sending someone new, Southlake's Communication and Website Manager, Pilar Schank. Pilar came to our most recent Oktoberfest committee meeting, had some great ideas, and brought up several things we just hadn't thought about. She's making a real contribution, after only one meeting.

I'm also on the Chamber's Board of Directors. Southlake's excellent longtime Director of Economic Development and Board ex-officio member, Greg Last, recently left his position with the city. (He's going to be consulting on ED, and if you have occasion to hire him, DO.) Greg has faithfully attended Board meetings for years, contributing valuable insight. When he left, Southlake's amazing City Manager, Shana Yelverton, stepped up and offered to attend the meetings. She came to our most recent one, where she asked questions that seemed to illuminate the room. She asked a few questions and made a few points, and brought such innovative thinking to the discussion that it felt like the meeting attained a whole new level of productivity.

So what's the deal? It's not like the people who were involved before weren't great. They were. They are, and they're just as smart and hard-working and helpful as the new people. But it seems like every time we have someone new listening with new ears and chiming in, we get value that's way out of proportion to just having someone new there.

What's been happening wasn't exactly group think. That isn't the right term. It's not that we all agree, or even "agree to disagree" to maintain harmony. We don't care that much about harmony. And it's certainly not that we're married to the status quo—most of the people in these groups don't hesitate for a second to shake things up—but it could be that meeting with the same people, following the same agenda time after time, naturally leads us to walk the same path, time after time. I suppose we just kind of get stuck in patterns of thought, or ways to look at problems, and having fresh ideas added to the usual mix startles us out of the…well, I guess rut is the word.

The fact is, developing ideas is easier when you have a lot of different minds adding something to the pot. Larry Hardesty of MIT wrote a great article for the Product Design & Development website that goes into detail about it. He notes that when the population of a city doubles (and the people have the opportunity to interact with each other), economic productivity goes up by 130%. New people, new ideas, new improvements. Yeah, that kind of fits what I've been seeing in my own little world lately.

I suppose the lesson here, and someone help me remember this, is that you (I) have to go out of the way to make sure there's fresh input. How? I guess add people to a committee, or invite guests to a meeting or…what? Any other suggestions? Face-to-face interaction is apparently the name of the game. We just have to find a way to make it happen.


*You should volunteer for this. Contact me; we'll talk.