Achieving Simplicity

My husband and I recently moved to California which we knew would not be the best financial decision. The decision to move was based on more emotional reasons and my own rather questionable health coupled with a really rough pregnancy, we knew that despite the fact that our income would drop a bit and our cost of living would increase, it was still the right decision.

But add the start market decline and a rocky real estate market and 2008 was financial disastrous for us. Of course, we weathered the storm better than a lot of people and will hopefully recover in 2009 - if not fully, then we’ll at least be well on our way.

My husband pointed out that our conversations over the past couple of months have shifted from “will we ever be able to buy a house?” to “when will we be able to buy a house?”. It’s a much more optimistic conversation.

Tonight we went out and looked at the neighborhood that we would some day like to end up in. We also talked about what we were looking for and now we have a ballpark range to shoot for.

We made the goal much more concrete.

And in doing so, we’ve set our sights on something we can visual and measure progress against.

That’s not to say that the goal won’t every change, but it’s a good starting point, regardless of where we actually end up.

Steps to Making a Goal More Concrete

Visualize

Whether it’s running a marathon, finishing school or buying a house, a concrete picture of what you’d like the end result to be will help you stay focused. When you start to waver from your goals, return to the mental picture and remind yourself of your motivation.

Set a Timeline

I recommend setting up two timelines, a stretch goal and a realistic. Be willing to reevaluate at set points - however, don’t allow yourself to use excuses to push back your vision.

Have honest conversations with all involved

Sure, maybe you’re the one running the marathon, but if you think it doesn’t affect your family, you’re fooling yourself. If you want to buy a house in the suburbs and your spouse wants to live in a loft downtown, you’re setting yourself up for disaster. Talk specifics with the other people who will be affected by your new plan. If everyone isn’t on board, find out why and work to resolve the issues.

Having other people aware of your goal is a great way to make the goal more real. Accountability is key.

Measure

Decide how you’re going to measure your progress and then take the measurements at regular intervals. This will alert you to falling off course before you veer too far.

It’s the beginning of our busy season at work and so I found myself at work on Saturday trying to get a few things done so I wouldn’t be as stressed during the week. I was amazed how much I accomplished in three hours. It was probably the equivalent of five hours of work on a weekday. I also thought about the following difference between working on a Saturday and working during the week.

Steer clear of distractions.

Simply by being alone in the office, there was a number of distractions that were avoided. This made me think about adjusting my workweek schedule a bit so that there was more time in the office when less people are there. An hour or two a day without distraction would make a huge difference in the amount of work accomplished.

Keep in mind that the time your using is your own

During the week it’s easy to fall victim to the idea that you have to be at work for so many hours, so there’s no reason to be more productive. On a Saturday, it’s much easier to keep in mind things that you’d rather be doing with your weekend - playing with the kids, watching football, taking care of things around the house. This line of thinking helped stopped rather wandering of the web.

Take breaks, but keep them to reasonable lengths.

It’s okay to spend a few minutes here or there reading a news article or making a phone call if you’re stuck a problem. Breaks are important. It’s when the length of time spent taking a break gets out of hand that they become a problem. I also found that with no one in the office I could do some stretching/yoga without worrying about appearing silly.

Remind yourself of why you like your work…

or at least how you came to be doing this sort of work. Without having to deal with clients or coworkers, there was less emotional stress involved in the work, and I was just able to enjoy the technical aspect of the job which I enjoy greatly.

A Fan of New Year’s Resolutions

Though it may be a seemingly unpopular thing to say these days. I’ll admit it - I’m a fan of the New Year’s Resolution. It seems that I’ve read a lot of blogs lately about how New Year’s resolutions don’t work and how it’s silly because, really, New Year’s is just another day.

But I’m taking my stand. I’m all for making resolutions. I made a number of them for myself.

1. When given the option while eating out - go for a salad. I know not all salads are the healthiest options, but compared to what I normally order, it’s a step in the right direction.

2. Switch from soda to tea for my caffeine consumption. With my busy season at work, it’s silly to think that I could give up caffeine right now, but I can at least switch to healthier sources.

3. Get my professional certification. With my husband’s support on this one, it can be done by the end of the year.

4. Continue working on trying to be a better mother, wife and person. Hard to measure, but there it is as always.

So why not take a day and join everyone in reflecting on the past year, and looking to next year with ambition? The latest statistics say that by Valentine’s day 80 percent of people have given up on their resolutions but that’s not reason enough for me.

Of course, there is no comparison to the number of people that make goals the rest of the year. Maybe the percentage of people that stick to New Year’s resolutions is far greater than the percentage of people that make goals on June 25th or August 18th. I doubt there will ever be a study that calculates the number of people that fail on those other days.

Let’s all take the time and reflect; let’s try to make ourselves one of those that stay on course and make some positive changes in our lives.

And let’s focus on the positive. This year, let’s be proud of the 20 percent that stick to their goals (at least for six weeks). And let’s remember that all statistics lie.

I’ve found the following questions can clear up much of the confusion and misunderstanding that happen at the workplace. When supervising recent college grads, I always give them this list of questions to ask for any new project. As a manager, I try to make sure to cover the information when giving out assignments, but I don’t always hit all the points.

When do you need this by?

I’ve been shocked by the number of times this simple bit of information is omitted in conversations. This has led to many late nights working on projects that I assumed were urgent and turned out to not be. Of course, there have also been times when I figured that the project was not as urgent as my supervisor thought it was.

Who is the project being prepared for?

I work in an information industry. When asked for data, it’s not always clear who the end user will be. While the output of any project should be professional, different notes or layouts might be required for different users. Don’t assume that it’s your boss that is the only one that’s going to be looking at your product.

How is it going to be used?

The obvious example here is an internal versus external report. Every company has things they would rather not have published for the world to see and misunderstand. This is closely related to whom the project is being prepared for. Formality is another key factor here. If your boss wants a single number, there’s no point spending an hour putting together a pretty spreadsheet; if the number is going to be presented to the board of directors, a little formatting would be appreciated.

Has this been done before? If so, by who?

Most programmers have an appreciation for the futility of recreating the wheel; in the business world, I’ve been amazed at the number of times people start over from scratch on a process that has done by someone else in another department or by a predecessor. If it’s been done before, ask for documentation, if it exists.

Is this something that you’re going to be requesting on a regular basis?

Of course, it’s always good to finish a project expediently, but if you know that you’ll be doing the same thing every month or every week, then it’s always good to be looking for ways to be more efficient. On the other hand, if it’s really just a one time request, then it doesn’t make sense to spend hours automating the request.

Everyone has moments of negativity, but these are a few ideas to change your attitude, or start working on a poor attitude quickly.

1. Find something easy on your to do list and get it done.

Give yourself a sense of accomplishment. This also has the added benefit of briefly changing your focus. Nothing that can be accomplished that quickly on your to do list? Then get started on something. Maybe you can’t write an entire paper in 30 seconds, but you can come up with a great title, topic or opening line.

2. Compliment someone.

Nothing changes a negative attitude as quickly as trying to make someone else smile. The key here is to be sincere. Compliment someone’s hard work, sense of style or thoughtfulness. No one around but yourself? Send an email, text or pick up the phone. This is the age of technology - run with it.

3. Make a phone call you’ve been avoiding.

Don’t limit yourself to the phone. Email is another option. Of course, this may take longer than thirty seconds, but make the commitment that once the phone starts ringing, you won’t hang up. Then, within thirty seconds, you’ve commited to getting something unpleasent done, and trust me, afterwards you’ll feel better. And it’s not going to get any easier the longer you avoid it.

4. Tell a good joke. Or come up with a clever facebook status. Or wave to a small child.

This goes along with the compliment idea. Take the focus off of yourself for a while and try to change someone else’s attitude. A little change of focus goes a long way.

5. Take 5 good, deep breaths.

Bad attitudes are often accompanied by a lot of muscle tension. Deep breaths give you a chance to pause and release the tension that is building. Thirty seconds of relaxation can go a long way.

6. Ask yourself what the goal of your current activity is.

If the bad attitude is caused by your current activity, ask yourself why you started doing this in the first place and what you hope to accomplish. Maybe you’re not thrilled about your job, but if your goal is to put food on the table then remind yourself that you are, in fact, working towards a goal. If you’re currently wandering the internet and avoiding dealing with something, recognize that. Figuring out what goal you’re currently working towards isthe first step towards figuring out if it is 1. worthwhile and 2. you are going about it in a positive manner.

7. Do five pushups.

And if you can’t do five pushups, do a 10 jumping jacks. Anything to get your blood ciculating. A little physical activity is one of the best things to shake off a bad attitude. And if thirty seconds leads to continued activity, all the better, but at least get started.

8. Come up with five ways that things could be worse.

Things could always be worse. With 6 billion people in the world, there is always someone that has it worse than you. So when the woe-is-me attitude starts getting you down, thinks of five ways that life could be worse, and then spend another thirty seconds being greatful that none of those scenarios are true.

9. Recognize that it’s hard to have a positive attitude 100% of the time and cut yourself some slack.

Everyone has days where it’s hard to shake off the negativity. If it’s caused by beating yourself about your current state, then give yourself a break. Tell yourself that it’s okay to feel like this and then give yourself a time frame for getting over it. Maybe things will look better after work, or after a good night sleep. Figure it out. Give yourself a deadline.

10. Take the first tiny step towards your goal.

Thirty seconds isn’t a lot of time, but it is enough time to register a domain name. Or brainstorm business ideas. Or order one of the books you’ve been meaning to read. There are a lot of tiny steps that can get you on your way. Figure one out and do it.