As the mother of two young athletes, I spend a considerable amount of time on the sidelines at girls sporting events.  I love sports and I would much prefer playing than watching.  But since I am relegated to the role of observer, here are a few things I’ve seen lately that might help a young player improve her game. Read more

Ok so this post just randomly came to my mind as I published Intentional Procrastination Can Boost Productivity a few seconds ago.  Normally I have scheduled writing times, but I’m breaking my normal pattern to bring you this brainstorm…

G O A L S     S U C K !

In the last paragraph of my previous post, I wrote “Just be sure it’s something YOU really want to do.” And I got to thinking about that and perhaps all of the “set your goals for 2010″ posts I’ve been reading in my RSS reader are brewing in my subconscious and I just need to borrow Kelli’s soapbox so I can stand up and tell everyone exactly why their goals suck. Read more

It may seem odd to think of procrastination as a useful tool, but it can be  quite powerful with a little creativity and thought.  I discovered this little gem recently when a very cool opportunity presented itself to my already overloaded schedule.  This new project should have taken me about 60+ hours to complete, but I procrastinated for several days and when I finally dove in I was able to finish it in just under 24 hours. Read more

Lately I’ve had to make some difficult choices. They boil down to choosing between the lesser of two evils which is never fun. It’s too soon to see the results of my decisions, but it brought back a reminder of a tough choice I made that turned out to be one of the best things I ever did.

Back in the day – 2005 to be exact – I was just starting Girls Can’t WHAT? and needed a vendor to make my designs into t-shirts. I contacted a local woman whom I had worked with on other projects and we discussed the options. She spent many hours helping me tweak my image files into a workable format for printing. After a couple of months, we had about 10 designs ordered and ready to be heat-pressed. I got to work on the marketing and soon I was taking orders like crazy.

It was then I noticed I was spending an insane amount of time just filling orders and dealing with shipping operations. At that rate, I had no time to do the creative work I enjoyed and my new business was becoming a huge time suck. Fail! Read more

This week I’ve been slowly transitioning away from my “day job” as a web developer to be able to spend more time preparing recording sessions with my band and marketing our forthcoming album.  While it feels good to free up the needed time and have the pressure of client work subside, it also brings into light many of the things that annoy me on a daily basis.  I have been so busy taking care of business that I have overlooked so many things that just bug the heck out of me!  So this week, I am taking time to annoy myself on purpose and get rid of those pesky things that add stress to my day.

The way this works is that I am specifically spending the week looking for things that annoy me.  A computer preference, a schedule conflict, clothes I never wear, desktop clutter…anything that causes me to think “I really should do something about…” and I’ve been making a list of those things.

Here are a few ways I’m combating my annoyances: Read more

This year I have made great strides in accomplishing some of my goals.  In fact, some of the items I have accomplished have been on my mind for years, yet it only took me a few weeks to tackle them.  Why is that?  I learned how to eat an elephant quickly without getting indigestion.

You know how to eat an elephant, don’t you?  One bite at a time, right?  Sounds simple enough, but I found out there are a few guidelines that go along with eating an elephant. Read more

When we hear “secrets to success” we often think about big, scary words like “discipline” and “time-management” or “perseverance”.  It’s easy to think that success only comes to those who work around the clock and never have time for fun and relaxation because they are always 100% focused.  I’m here to tell you that’s a load of crap. 

If I had to pick one thing that has helped me reach my goals, it would be the very simple act of following up.  Yup – that’s it – follow up.  That’s the big secret.  Sounds pretty straightforward, right?  So why is it such powerful tool and how can it be used effectively?

If you play sports, you probably already know about follow up.  Your coach has hopefully drilled that message into your head.  Follow up in sports can mean the difference between victory and defeat.  Lack of follow up can result in missing a rebound or a goal shot.  Whatever you set into motion as an athlete, you better be prepared to follow up and deal with the results.

You alone are responsible

While I am definitely a team player, it may sound like heresy to tell you not to rely on other people.  It’s not about trust or lack of faith in the other person’s abilities.  Not at all. Read more

For the last couple of months or maybe even longer, I’ve known that my wireless mouse was about to scamper off to the the big cheese wheel in the sky.  Some days it didn’t want to connect to my laptop and other days it had clicking issues.  I fiddled with settings on my Mac thinking I could outsmart it and make it behave, but nothing ever worked for more than a few minutes.

The final straw came when the scroll wheel started to stutter and eventually stopped working altogether.  This is not a good thing when your profession requires you to be at a computer all day.  So I beat it on the desk a few times and lo and behold it submitted to the thrashing and worked for a few more days before the stuttering started again.  I knew I was beating a dead horse (ok – mouse) but I just didn’t want to take the time or spend the money to replace it. So I continued to frustrate myself by working with a tired tool that was at the end of it’s lifespan.

This weekend while shopping, I decided I might as well fork over the $18 for a new wireless mouse (same make and model as before).  I plugged it in this morning and OH MY!  I guess I did not realize what a difference there would be!  Not only can I scroll flawlessly now but I can click easier and everything seems to flow so much faster!  I feel like I have a brand new computer and all I did was replace the mouse!

Makes me stop and think what else might need to be updated around here to keep the juices flowing and stop hindering creativity.  I’m going to make this my weekly challenge because as I work this week I will be analyzing the way I do things to see if there aren’t a few things I can do to improve my productivity.

What simple things can you change to make your life easier?

While working on my running goal, I’ve been reading about different techniques to keep motivated and to work smarter, not harder, etc.  One web site (which shall remain nameless) suggests to start out running as far as you go and then walking the rest of the way.  Each time you do this you should try to run a little farther.  This is crap.

Everything has a logical order, I think I expressed that clearly enough in “I Don’t Believe in Randomness“.  Exercise is no different.  I mentioned last week that you can’t vary your pace, you have to keep it steady.  The more I thought about it, I realized that I was going about my running goal backwards.

So today, I started off walking at a strong pace and when I got the last block, THEN I took off running.  Not full speed, but a pretty decent jog.  Checked my time…sure enough it was my fastest one yet.  Only by working up a steady walking pace could I be prepared to run and keep my pace up all the way to the end.  Tomorrow I’m going to do the same thing except start my jog about a half block sooner.    Eventually I will have backed that up all the way to my starting point and then I can say I can run a mile.  After that,  I think I might try for two miles…

Are you moving backwards towards your goals?

It’s not a secret that I’m very goal driven.  I can tell you with pretty certain accuracy where I am at with each of my current goals.  If you haven’t seen my series on setting and achieving goals, you can check it out and post your own results.  Recently, I discovered an even simpler way to manage goals that requires only a pen and paper.  It’s a no-brainer system for keeping me on track and motivating me to complete my tasks on time and in some instances I’m way ahead of the game.  Here’s how it works. Read more