February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

Buster, over at Mutual Improvement, has posted an interesting question - what is your order for the following list of priorities:
Home
Travel
Creativity & Self-expression
Love & Relationships
Beliefs
Education & Self-improvement
Money
Work & Career
Health

Well, for me, I would reorder as follows:
1. Love & Relationships (where I put family as well)
2. Health
3. Beliefs
4. Creativity & Self-Expression
5. Work & Career
6. Education & Self-Improvement
7. Money
8. Home
9. Travel

Of course, any time you do an exercise like this, the obvious question that comes to mind is - is this how I’m living my life. For me, the honest answer is no. However, my work towards fulfilling my 12 habits and towards examining the reasons why I work and perhaps finding a new job are all important aspects of getting this list back in the right order in reality and not just on paper.

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February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

Have you ever had that discussion with your parents - you know the one where you are unhappy with your job and you’re looking for a change because of all the stress, chaos, and simply the lack of passion for what you’re doing. And when you do have the discussion, the parent (in my case my father), get’s that glossed over look in his eye and says - you haven’t seen stress until… or you don’t know what work is until… 

Please don’t get me wrong.  He has worked harder in his 65+ years than I probably will work in 90+ years if I’m blessed to live that long.  However, times change dramatically with each generation.  His experience with work was different than his fathers and mine is different than his.  Not only are the contexts and the environments in which we work different, but we are different people.  Not terribly different, but different enough for me to know that I can’t work because it’s a good job with good pay and good benefits if it doesn’t interest me or feed my passion for living. 

I like a posting at StartupSpark on how you’ll know you’re an entrepreneur (You can also find the listing at lifehack.org).  I don’t think you have to necessarily own your own business or jump into a start-up company to be an entreprenuer or at least have an entrepreneurial spirit.  I certainly have held positions where I felt like an entrepreneur.  I loved the work, I loved the people whom I served and whom I worked with, I had a passion for what I was “selling” (and for that matter still do even though I haven’t been in that position for more than three years), I lived my work, I was always looking for new opportunities - both to extend what we were doing and how we were doing it and, most of all from the StartupSpark list, I think that I was always prepared to say, “I don’t know but I’ll figure it out.”  That is the part I’ve lost in my current position.  I can easily say I don’t know, but the I’ll figure it out part - that passion to answer the next question, conquer the next challenge, fill the next void, just isn’t there in this job. 

So dad, for you, please know - I don’t really think I have it bad.  I just want more.

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February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

They aren’t quite yet calling it a blizzard, but it appears we might end up there by the end of the day. Regardless of what they are calling it, I’m staying home!!! Today is a day to spend cleaning, doing my taxes, baking some cookies, and playing with the kitties. I’ll also probably spend a significant amount of time playing with my new camera, a Nikon D80. I took this shot early this morning while coordinating all the phone calls and instant messages and emails regarding whether or not we would be closed today. Glad I made productive use of all the down time between photographs. The shot taken with White Balance set to -3 to warm up the ugly yellow color of the light, but all other settings were using the Program Automatic Mode.  After all, the camera knows far more than I do about photography!

From Blog Photos

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February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

The midwest is being pounded on by mother nature in the form of a winter storm. It’s one of those storms that isn’t really bad yet, but has promises of many great things to come.  As a facilities director, it is my job to assist in the decision making regarding whether or not to close our little campus.  Thankfully, we’ve decided to close for the day.  Needless to say, this helped me greatly in my question towards the early rising and more routine evenings/mornings as I always try to get to sleep a bit earlier the night before a stron like this since I know I’ll have to be up so early and I got up at 4 this morning to start monitoring the weather situation.  I did take a couple of cool pictures out the window this morning with my Nikon D80 which I’ll share with you in a post a bit later.  If you’re in the midwest, stay inside today and off the roads.  If you’re on the east coast, particularly New England - get ready.

Anyway, if you work in a business where you have the opportunity to take a snow day once in a while (either the business imposes it or you simply save a sick day or two in order to use as snow days - regardless of whether there is snow on the ground), I say congratulations.  It is a great day when mother nature says, you need to stop.  For those folks who can’t stop - doctors, nurses, my social worker friend who works at the local hospital, road crews, police, fire, and emergency workers - the rest of us NEED to stay off the roads and let these people do their jobs under the worst possible circumstances.  The rest of us need to cuddle up under a blanket with our favorite pet and a good book and catch up on our leisure reading, blog postings, or just get a little shut eye. 

I do love snow days.

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February 12, 2007 by karamonroe.

Blogger Marvelz has posted his ultimate productivity index at http://gtd.marvelz.com/blog/2007/02/12/introducing-gtd-indexs-big-sister/.  It’s a great resource and a sister to his GTD index.  These two indices are great as they show you at a glance the age of the postings on the blogs using color/typeface cues.  Great resource.

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February 12, 2007 by karamonroe.

Blog lifehack posted the original series of questions which inspired me to start this blog and this question/answer set was one that really caught my attention. However, I’ve not been ready to post my response to it until now.  Recently, I’ve been doing a great deal of reflection on my strengths and weaknesses, particularly as they relate to my work.  I’ve come up with the following strengths:

1. The ability to make order out of chaos
2. The ability to apply technology to a situation to streamline a process
3. The ability to teach people a new skill (and the desire to do this teaching)
4. The ability to pick up new skills myself and apply them to existing problems

I’ve shared these strengths with my boss and a few trusted friends. They agree these seem pretty accurate for me so I fell confident that these are some of the reasons why I work. It’s number 3 - the ability to teach people a new skill and a desire to do that teaching that I plan to talk about here.

Teaching is a part of who I am.  Since I was three if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, part of the answer was always teacher.  I might have wanted to teach ballet or I might have wanted to teach people to be lawyers, but I never wanted to “do” - I always wanted to “teach”.  Sure, I’ve heard the saying that those who can’t do, teach which I think is the farthest thing from the truth.  I can do all that I teach - however I have chosen to share my ability widely with others.  My undergraduate degree was in teaching and my doctorate is in higher education so teaching and learning are just a part of my blood.  But, what is the role of teaching for the normal person at work and how does that lead us to ho-ohana (intentional and worthwhile work)?

Every person possesses skills and knowledge that another person does not have.  Take the example of Sam, one of our cleaning staff.  Sam can buff scratches out of anything.  It’s truly an amazing skill.  I’ve seen near gouges in furniture that Sam does some magical thing to with a cloth and some cleaning fluid and the scratch disappears.  Sam isn’t super strong - Sam just knows how to do this.  Yet, when asked to show others this skill Sam is resistant.  Why would that be?

There are several possible reasons.  Perhaps Sam is afraid that her value as an employee will go down if other people have her amazing skill as well.  Sam may be unable to put a voice to her skill.  She understands the concepts, the skills, and the tools - but perhaps she is unable to explain it to another person.  Or, perhaps Sam simply doesn’t wish to help another person learn.  Regardless of the reason why, Sam won’t share her information with others.  For Sam, teaching, coaching, and mentoring - at least regarding this one particular skill is not why she works.

However, for me, this is a thing that feeds my soul (a phrase I’ve taken to using lately in my quest for intentional and worthwhile work).  Last week, a staff member walked in my office while I was mid project - a project that had to be done by the end of the day. That staff member was having difficulty interpreting a report and knew I would be able to help.  We sat down together, worked through it, and the staff member was on their way.  The staff member doesn’t report to me and the report had little or nothing to do with my position - however that staff member knew I would be able and willing to explain the information to them in a way they could understand.  Teaching, coaching, and mentoring have just become a way of life for me.  Helping others to understand the world and function in it a little more easily is part of what feeds my soul and helps me on the quest to ho-ohana.

What about you?

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February 11, 2007 by karamonroe.

So, today is the first day I am implementing the new daily routines.  Let’s take a look at the constraints of my day.  I work a typical 8 - 5 job but don’t punch a time clock.  My job is about 50% interruption driven (that’s probably a conservative estimate) so any plan I have once I get to work is often quickly derailed by the latest emergency.  (I’m part facilities director/part finance director/part IT director - hence why so many interruptions - as soon as email goes down it becomes the most pressing issue I have to deal with - all the rest of my tasks be damned).  Therefore, I want to get my day off to and close my day off with a nice routine process that helps me center for the day.  So here is my proposed daily routine:

Morning Routine

1. Wake at 5:30.  I’ve been doing this for years, but not getting up - I normally hit snooze several times so the goal here is to get up and get moving.
2. Fix hot tea, water, or fruit/vegetable juice and an appropriate breakfast.  I typically grab a diet coke and pack of pop tarts, even though I know I feel better if I grab a piece of whole wheat toast and glass of V8 juice.
3. Pack lunch for the day if applicable.  Many days I have lunch meetings so this doesn’t matter, but when possible, I want to start packing lunch.
4. Do blog post. - my accountability mechanism
5. Meditate/Read/Pray - start my day centered
6. Feed, water, walk cats/dog.
7. Shower/dress for the day.

My Evening Routine

My goal here is to get to be by 10 p.m., hopefully to sleep by 10:30.  This means the following routine:

1. Take care of personal items (brush teeth, wash face, etc.)
2. Clean litter boxes/check pet food/walk dog
3. Turn off TV at 10:00 p.m.
4. Read until sleepy, but no later than 10:30.

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February 11, 2007 by karamonroe.

I was doing some reading over at Life Hacker today and came upon a post by Leo, auther of Zen Habits, regarding his 12 habits.  In this post, Leo identifies 12 habits he is going to adopt, apparently at least one per month over the next twelve months.  (This is clearly stated so it could also be assumed Leo is going to adopt all 12 habits and track progress on each for a month to ensure the habit is adopted).  As I read Leo’s post, I thought about how many of the items I am concerned about in my life really reflect habitual processes - relearning a way of viewing something or relearning a method for doing something so that it becomes routine or habit.  So, I thought I’d share my 12 habits for the next year.  My goal is to implement one of these habits per month and track progress on each one.  So, my 12 habits to be adopted are:

1. Develop a morning/evening routine - My mornings and evenings (bedtime) are currently a hodge-podge of different activities which aren’t repeated with any form of regular consistency.  I don’t eat breakfast every day, don’t complete the bible reading I’ve pledged to do daily, don’t make my bed, don’t turn off the tv at a consistent time each night which research says will help me sleep better.
2. Stick to a budget - I’ve tried this before but always fall off the wagon.  However, as that I’m planning to finally buy a house this year, sticking to a budget is going to become far more important. 
3. Reduce my debt - Once again I’ve let my credit cards get a little higher than I want them to be, so I’m planning to develop a plan to reduce debt.  Obviously just one month in this habit isn’t going to do much for me, other than perhaps developing a plan.  However becoming more aware of my spending, thinking more about purchases (being more frugal), etc. it will probably be the most valuable month of the year.
4. Drink more water and take vitamins - This one kind of relates to the first, however, I drink entirely too much diet soda and I don’t take vitamins to get some extra calcium, which as a female I desperately need to prevent osteoporosis later in life. 
5. Eat a healthier, homecooked diet - This is really two items in one.  It’s entirely too easy to eat convenience take out food, even though I love to cook.  I have a wealth of healthful cookbooks/recipe resources - just need to spend some time putting them to use.
6. Use GTD/DIT Concepts to be more productive - I’ve been using GTD for the last eight months and feel as though I’ve gotten some additional productivity as a result of this so far, but know that I’m nowhere near the proverbial black belt which David Allen discusses.  In addition, I’d like to implement the concept of Mark Forster’s Do It Tomorrow Closed Lists as I think that the large scale Next Action/Waiting For lists are still too overwhelming.
7. Keep a cleaner home - I’ve put this as item number 7 specifically because I think by that time in the year (seven months from now), I’ll be in my new house and ready to really finalize what it is I’m doing with keeping my home organized and neat and clean. 
8. Read more regularly - I have a huge list of to be read books.  This habit has nothing to do with me not reading enough - it’s simply that I don’t make the time to read the books I wish to read (those on my to be read list).  Perhaps this will become a part of my routine.
9. Exercise at least five days per week for at least 30 - 40 minutes per day - I want to lose some weight.  I want to be more fit.  Exercise is a great way to meet both of these goals.  Whether it’s an evening walk around the neighborhood with the dog that gets longer regularly (good for both me and puppy) or doing sit ups while I watch Grey’s Anatomy there are a lot of easy things I can do to make this habit a reality.
10. Stop complaining - I used to be a healthfully optimistic person.  The world wasn’t all rose colored glasses, but I saw my glass as half full far more often than half empty.  A confluence of activities - a job I don’t enjoy so much, surrounding myself with some more negative people, some general depression - have joined together and I’m not that same positive person.  In a step back toward that aim of being more positive, I plan to stop complaining.
11. Rediscover what motivates me - I’ve never been a huge procrastinator until the last year or so.  I really feel like this is related primarily to the items I’ve mentioned in item 10 above.  When you simply aren’t as happy as you’d like, it’s more difficult to be motivated.  So hopefully the placement of this item in number 11 and my plan to work on these sequentially, this one will find me in a new place (perhaps a new job, a new house, and the adoption of 10 new habits by that time).
12. Reconnect relationships - I’ve struggled lately with keeping relationships with family and friends where I want them to be.  There are no major problems here - no big break up, etc.  I just want to be a better friend, sister, aunt, daughter, co-worker, etc.

So, there you have it - my 12 habits I pledge to adopt over the next year.  I’ll keep you up to date as the year progresses.  Who knows - perhaps even a second post on my already gathering thoughts on how to adopt my new morning/evening routine.  How about sharing your 12 habits in the comments.

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January 17, 2007 by karamonroe.

I came in to work this morning and heard two wonderful words - email’s down (I guess it would be three if you count the contraction).  What a blessing.  For a few glorious minutes, hours, or even maybe a day - no one will be able to reach me via email.  Don’t get me wrong - email is still my preferred method of communication.  However, after being off work sick for three days last week, I’m backlogged in a way that just shouldn’t be permitted.  More than 89 items which still require action after a cursory read of the more than 300 messages in my inbox.  I delegated 20 or 30 of them relatively quickly, deleted, filed, or quickly responded to more than 100 that were junk or “just FYI” or quick yes and no answers.  Yet I’m left with these 89 action items, with due dates in some imposed by the sender (I need this by tomorrow is the best one - since I got it last Wednesday and was out sick, do I even need to respond?). 

 Email is so abused in our culture.  We’ve used it as a way to get around face-to-face communication about difficult situations and as a way to cover our own butts when we think something might go wrong in a situation.  So..here’s to hoping that the techno-Gods keep email in its proper place for a while - turned off.  Perhaps that’s an idea for a staff development day - turnt he email server off for a day or two even once per month to allow people the opportunity to get caught up. Like casual Fridays, but we could call it no email Thursday. 

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December 13, 2006 by karamonroe.

Thre is an outstanding article in the November 27, 2006 issue of eWeek (see p. 8 or http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2064441,00.asp).  The article by Eric Lundquist urges the reader to embrace collaboration technologies - particularly with their power to change not only our personal interactions, but more importantly our work interactions.  Lundquist says, “Add wikis to the world of blogs, podcasts, videocasts, and social networks, and the ability for the manager to control the company from the traditional top-down approach simply won’t work.  I’m not the only one thinking this way.”  And I would agree - he is certainly not the only one thinking this way.

Interactive technologies such as email and IM have changed the ways in which we communicate and now web 2.0 technologies like those Lundquist lists are changing the way we interact, plan, and even approach information sharing.  For example, I would never consider offering a training session anymore that didn’t also include a podcast version in both audio format and video format.  Not only that but products like MagneticTime allow me to now listen to my documents quickly and easily.  As an educator - I’ve always thought it was important for us to embrace multiple learning styles - these new collaboration technologies just make it so much easier to do so for anyone interested in publishing.

I wonder what the teachoutloud service provided by LearnOutLoud (www.learnoutloud.com) will do for educational provision - and the ability of individuals to license their products using a creative commons licensing - giving explicit rights of use to users without any question of the copyright you’re providing - are all powerful and important tools to consider as we continue to embrace interactive and collaboration technologies in the workplace, at home, and in education.

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