Overextension of oneself

 

I have to laugh at myself on this occasion… I originally came up with the idea for this article on March 24, 2023, and here it is slightly over a month later and I am just getting to this particular piece. Why?… Because I did exactly what the title says I overextended myself. It was a perfect storm and then I added to it with my own special secret ingredient, I increased the scope of my video article on the basics of Windows 10 part one. It grew into a monster over an hour and 1/2.

Then I added to this dessert of mayhem a generous sprinkling of committee meetings and evening nonprofit organizational meetings. I'm not kidding the last month vaporized inactivity. I kept thinking about the blog and my brain was just saturated with everything else. I must've seen the writing on the wall subconsciously when the idea for this article popped into my head.

I can therefore attest that everyone reading this must give themselves a break. Start small if you like just stop whatever you're doing and let go. If you have to put that smart watch under a pillow :-). To remind myself to slow down and appreciate more, because let's face it, everything in life only occurs once, I bought myself a Tiffany lamp. By racing through the day you are literally missing the whole point of being alive and that is to acknowledge the very experience and take value from it. The lamp reminds me of the time it took the artisans to make it. They invested part of their life in it.

When one is younger there is a subconscious belief that the flow of life is infinite. Therefore one wastes a great deal of time in those early days by not being present in the moment. Man, one does not do that when one is in their 60s and yet I was talking to a friend of mine over the weekend who said "You're still a youngster, I am 89." That put it into perspective for me. I remember in elementary school when I thought 30 was over the hill. And when I was even younger, a year felt like forever, especially just after Christmas. Not that I'm materialistic, but I do remember clearly thinking that it would be an entire year before I can start my campaign of nagging my parents for whatever new Mattel propaganda was being produced.

So take a break right now if you can. Don't fill the space immediately with other activities. Let your self gear down a bit and check-in with your body and self. If they say "you're doing too much.". Listen to them! If you overextend yourself than the quality of everything you do will suffer along with you. Learn what speed you can go ahead and everything will improve.

Take care Patrick

How Do You Find Questions to Answer?

How Do You Find Questions to Answer?

When I first pondered this question, my initial answer was that ideas were always occurring to me pretty much automatically. They would just pop in out of nowhere. Then I realized that behind every question there is always a story something, somewhere spurred me on to first the question and then developing an answer. Nothing occurs in a vacuum 😀.

First and foremost regarding how to find questions to answer is the act of paying attention. Too many people have a tendency to go on autopilot during their busy days and forget to take the occasional break from the routine. Breaking away whatever you're doing is a critical step in finding new things to explore. But this breaking away must be done according to your timing. This is not to be confused as an interruption of your workflow which is always counterproductive when it occurs because it takes so much time to get your mental thought pattern back in gear. No, when you choose to break away and investigate something else it must be your own personal choice. This will usually have the great effect of improving your creativity and sense of freedom if done over a period of time let's say a month. This deliberate shifting of gears can be very refreshing indeed.

Another thing you can do to keep your mind inquisitive and finding questions to answer is deliberately seek something that is a little mentally challenging. I believe the human brain was built for a challenge something that stretches your boundaries a little bit and increases your understanding and knowledge base. What ever it is it needs to be done regularly. It is like a workout, the more you do the more you get back from the exercise.

That is actually one of the reasons this blog was originally started, to give myself the daily challenge of coming up with the new thought or idea. At first it seemed like a daunting undertaking because there is that much really occur in a person's life that there is enough to write about every day… The answer is if you pay attention yes there definitely is. An exercise you can undertake to prove this is:

Pick several days in a row in which you make a promise to yourself to notice the interactions you go through with people and events. I can guarantee that you will find something to either record or write about. This is one of those rare instances where things will actually come to you. Of course you are undertaking a deliberate decision to look for them. My own personal goal is to try to write something from now on every day. This doesn't always occur but it is usually because time or other activities prevent it. --You know, when life throws you a small curveball 😀. It is important when these curveballs get thrown at you that you don't become discouraged. Keep noticing your interactions.In the same way also, don't be afraid to take a break. I met people that actually have gone overboard with the above activity and they become mentally swamped. Their brain then does the biological equivalent of a computer crash and it takes them a while to get back up on their game.

The last take away from all of this is you are the boss. Take some of the ideas and remold them as necessary to fit your ecosystem, whatever that may be.

Enjoy Finding Questions to Answer!
Have a great day and take care. Patrick
 

A Star is Bright because its light is focused: Simplify, and Reduce Distraction

 

If you're anything like me, you are our natural problem solver who loves to figure things out 😀.

You will probably also have figured out, that you are a rather rare breed. People keep coming to you with various requests or asking you how to fix this or that... Or the most intoxicating, almost irresistible, situation occurs when you overhear someone talking about a problem and your brain instantaneously goes "I know how to fix that!" and you absolutely must help them out. This goes marvellously at first, and your ego is riding high on the knowledge that you have made a minor mark in the world and helped improve things.

This is great, but…

You have just run out of time in the day to do all the things you want or need to do. You have inadvertently signed yourself up for every repair job and are on a bunch of committees. To top it off you're also involved in a few projects in which you will also taken the lead and are in no position to hand it off to someone else in order to give yourself a break.-Your control freak has just introduced himself to you.

If that's you in a nutshell, fear not because that's also me. I have a feeling it describes a lot of people in the world whose goal it is to improve life in general. We just love to play and inadvertently become the repair shop, the support of friend, the problem solver etc. This isn't just ego either, we really do have a knack for understanding situations. The worst part is you (and I) know what to do, we just disdained the thought of doing it, and that is, it is necessary in order to do the best work possible, to stop trying to do everything. One must "Simplify, and Reduce Distraction" which means in practical terms something must be let go.

This sure is a difficult thing to do. To choose one of the many things we are doing and let someone else actually do it. Don't worry the world will live on. But one must make a commitment to oneself also do not take anything new up. Trading projects is not an option, it is necessary to give oneself some free time. You do remember what free time is don't you? -I'm not sure this moment if I do- Here it is 8:30 in the morning and I have to resist the urge to follow another idea for an article. I have to face the fact that I can't put out multiple articles and do the work that is expected of me later in the day as well as doing all the artwork and publicizing necessary in the time allotted. ...(Yes, believe it or not folks, blogs and websites do need publicizing. The traffic and visitors don't grow on trees and just show up. Internet myth busting fact #1: "A Website is not a substitute for an advertisement. It is the destination a visitor ends up at after seeing an ad about the site.")...

So I'm on a quest to reduce and simplify things. I can already feel my subconscious going nuts at just the thought... I think one of the first things to go will be a committee or two... To give myself a little more breathing room.  Because quantity is no substitute for quality and if you and I want to do good in the world we must become focused and allow other creative souls to take over certain things. The world has done well without us before head and will do well after us.

It is really necessary to focus on the quality of the goal and doing all you can do to assure that it comes out well. As I can older I really believe that the other people we see in our lives who appear to be doing everything so well have to face the same issues and the lessons they have learned is to focus and simplify. This also means using tools like delegating and allowing people to grow into positions.

The brightest stars in the heavens are bright because their light is focused.

Have a great day everyone.
Take care Patrick

Don't Overwhelm Yourself - "Human load balancing"

  Human load balancing

Now that's a very fancy 21st-century term, that in reality simply means "Don't Overwhelm Yourself." This can happen very easily especially if you are creative and like (dare I say love) to assist people in what you see as productive or positive outcomes.

I am a prime example, I have a habit in the last few years of saying "Sure, I would love to be on that committee" or "I can fix that for you.". Things can get a little bit crazy because if you follow through with those good intentions, your happy patrons will spread the word and the next thing you know "the weekend" has turned into an abstract concept. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't do those things, I am saying that there needs to be timing and a limit involved. What I have discovered is a lot of people will leave you alone on the weekdays because they don't want to disrupt your work but come the weekend, usually around 3 PM Friday, text messages start appearing or there's a knock at the door.

If you observe carefully though, you will notice something… Some wise people seem to have a mystical power to at least outwardly manage all this activity. Is it a potion, or some agreement they have with an arcane thousand-year-old society?… Nope. It's common sense these people are using. When they take a holiday they really disconnect. And frequently the holiday or "space" if you prefer the term, is of considerable length. I have a friend who just took a month off. They let all the clients know it and they just went. They also don't answer business calls under any circumstances. If there is something mission-critical they preassigned some individual ahead of time.

The rest of us mortals can learn something here.

1. Enforce your holidays as sacred events. Make sure the people you are providing a service for, Know ahead of time that this is how you run your affairs.
   
   
2. Make sure someone else can step in if need be, and select them ahead of time.

Now, "Are We Listening Patrick?"

Yes this idea is beginning to sink in, slowly but surely we will all get better at this.

Take care Patrick

Where does one find the time?

I don't know about you, but lately the amount of things I have to do seems to be going up and up.

To make matters more interesting the reason seems to be that we know what were doing for certain tasks and that other people are somehow missing the experience or the knack. I don't want to leave people and projects high and dry. For the last few months it seems every weekend I find myself saying "Next weekend I am taking it off." But inevitably something comes up. It may not be directly related to work but it's just enough to consume chunks of the weekend or one's free time. Right now for example I'm already thinking about tomorrow morning. There is a server that needs work, a guide needs to be written, someone else need today for a consultation. If you been reading my blog this is good news for you because that consultation has to do with another article I wrote a month or two ago about smart assistance for the disabled. I can't remember the title right off hand but I'll make sure there's a link.

Anyway this is a supershort entry and I'm going to set the blog to release it tomorrow morning at 9 AM. With a little bit of luck all find some time during the day. To add a more meaningful article or at least start one.

Take care Patrick (and of course stay tuned.)