A brief pause…

A brief pause while I chair a three-day event for 50,000–75,000 visitors. That is, this.

I'll be back.

It's the 4th of July

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!