One of the nice things about getting ‘more seasoned’ in my career is being able to pace myself. Last week began my tunnel vision for a deadline approaching next Thursday. While this will be a short Blog, for the next couple of days I need to stay focused.

Every project I work on, I set a schedule. This particular one started over a year ago. When I set a 65% deadline for April 12, 2018 it was just some day in the distance future. And for this project, it really was. I made the initial schedule March of 2017. There were a couple of tweaks along the way, but much had not changed from the start. And for anyone that knows schedules, you may be thinking... 13 months to get to 65%? I will just say, it is a government project. For every four days of work there is one day of review or red tape.

Staying focused is a bit of a challenge in today’s world of shiny objects. For an ADD techno-nerd, I’m talking about the internet and email. I remember 15 years ago, when crunching on a deadline, I would ask the receptionist to send my calls straight to voice mail. Today my phone rings maybe once a day. The main communication tool is email. Email has replaced the phone.

The challenge is not to launch email, and for that I use Outlook at work. What’s the very first thing I do when I turn on the computer? Yep, you probably guessed it, launch Outlook. But I have been ignoring it for the most part for the past week. I typically get 100+ emails a day, work related (not SPAM). I will watch for critical headers related to the deadline. But overall, push back on the others.

By the time Friday rolls around, I will have almost 200 unread and I will spend an hour going through as many as possible. Sometimes I get 5 done, while others I can get over half. The best part is this will clear my plate, help me stay focused and gear up for another week.

I like my shiny objects. I just have to remember to focus and keep the eye on the ball. Right now, I’m about 2 days off of where I would like to be for my deadline. I do have a pretty good track record. I can’t recall the last time I missed a deadline. And the way things are going, I won’t miss this one on April 12th. Now, back to my interior elevations.

…and now for something completely different.
A single cloud can weight more than 1 million pounds.