Five week months

Because there are five weeks in January, I do not have to work on any new skill or analyze a new aspect of my life. I will spend this week practicing the use of my calendar and tickler file and doing what needs to be done most first, whether I like it or not. I'm good with the calendar, but need some help with the tickler file. I must admit that the tickler file makes me feel like the ocean of tasks can be accomplished. If I had a large steno pad by my phone it might help me as well. That way I wouldn't be tempted to take notes on little pieces of paper that are destined to be lost in the shuffle. (Not that that's ever happened to me!)

February's focus is reclaiming the work place. I couldn't help but peek ahead. February just might make me sweat! Stay tuned.

I'm not as far behind as I thought I was.

Routine is one of the most important aspects of this week's chapter, but the author also encourages me to:

Already part of my routine:

1. eat breakfast (a real one!) I eat breakfast with my daughter every morning. Sometimes I'm standing up doing dishes or making my lunch when we eat, but we eat breakfast together.

2. go to bed earlier and get enough sleep (Except when I have a really important hearing or meeting the next morning, I'm pretty good about this one.)


I'm incorporating into my routine:

1. eliminate the electronic diversion in the morning--checking email, amazon and facebook, for example? I did not check this morning OR yesterday morning. I'm getting ready to jump on the wagon with reformed techno addicts!


I need support for these:

1. exercise for 15 minutes each day

2. sticking with the new habits I say I've incorporated! It's much easier to stop than it is to start.

A calmer morning rush?

So yesterday's list was not as long as it could have been. I could also:

1. not check my work email or amazon account or facebook account before I leave for work. Will one hour make a difference?

2. do the dinner dishes after dinner (blasphemy!) instead of after breakfast the next moring, which has become a habit

I tried both of these this morning and was in my coat and boots when the bus picked my daughter up at 8:30am! So when I got to work I was able to help with some daily tasks for 45 minutes before I went to my office. And those tasks gave me some exercise running around and finding books, going up and down stairs, carrying stacks and moving stacks. It was both a morale booster and a heart rate booster.

Perhaps there is hope. If you saw my office, you'd know there is still a long way to go on the road to having it all together. In fact, I may need more than a year.

Calming the morning rush

As I prepared for work this morning, I asked myself what would make the morning easier in the context of this week's chapter. Well...there are so many things I could do the night before, if only I could get the gumption.

1. pack the car with the oodles of things that need to go back to work--donations, items I've listed on amazon at home, books that are overdue (!)

2. make my lunch

3. set out my clothes and iron them

This looks an awful lot like the chore chart I created for my daughter. If it works for her, surely it can work for me. Right?

The map is the key.

The book devotes the month of January to setting goals. My goals at work are to secure the library's financial foundation, finish and implement annual reviews of each employee, improve communication so no one is out of the loop, leave work on time, become more regimented with follow-up on assigned tasks, and organize tasks better so I feel a sense of accomplishment each day. I'd like to have a daily/mothly/yearly maintenance tasks calendar for maintenance workers to sign off on. The same for HR updates and adminstrative file purging. I'd like to have an employee handbook and orientation as well as a trustee orientation.

I want to be the library director for the forseeable future and become a good director. I also want to enable those who support me to meet my expectations.

In my personal life I would like to pay off our debt (with the possible exception of the house) within five years, get into good shape physically, put money into savings in a more regimented way, finish all of the renovations on the house wish list, better organize things at home so cooking dinner and other regular tasks are not difficult, downsize by getting rid of stuff. (That I'm pretty good at, but need to fine tune and perhaps put each area that needs to be cleaned out on a schedule.) I'd like my family to have an easier time keeping track of things and getting thing done through routine and organization.

How Did I Get Here?

Same as it ever was. No, wait. that's a Talking Heads song.

The first week's assignment is to respond to questions to help you focus on where you want to get by looking at how you got to where you are. Those who know me know that I was very driven. It took me ten years to get from high school to Master's degree, with only two at the beginning and two or three (It's not as clear as it once was!) full time semesters at the end. Working, commuting, and taking courses was a long haul, but I loved it and could tick off classes each semester, including the summer. I could see exactly what I needed to do to get to point B. One of my biggest fears was that I would die before earning my degree. Looking back, that seems a little short-sighted. But that tells you how important that degree was to me. I wanted to earn it or die trying. Could anything ever make me feel that way again?

Upon graduation, I was going to change the world in academic bibliographic instruction. I had the graduate assistantships, the references, the relationships with top notch academic librarians, and even the possibility of a part time academic position. I was on fire for BI. But that part-time possibility came after I had already accepted a full time public library position in a different part of the state.

Why a public library? I applied for a job in my mother's home town, walked into the library and said to myself, "This is why I decided to go to library school!" It shouldn't surprise me that what I first thought I was going isn't what happened. When I started college right out of high school, my plan was to go to community college and transfer to Fredonia for a degree in genetic engineering. So what happened to the plan?

In my quests for degree or credential, or employment, I have always experienced more than a bit of serendipity. The ad in the paper for a volunteer in the local school library, someone from my former home town of Petersburgh (population in the hundreds) in my classes at community college who guided me though the transition to Albany, the bookstore that opened in Albany just when I was looking to leave full time fast food management, the job in my mother's home town, the job as a Teen Services Librarian that became whatever I wanted it to be. I was afire with motivation. These opportunities kept me going.

And now I am an administrator. I will look back on this and realize there was a greater wisdom in this, just as I have with all things planned, but not planned.

Does this exercise help me feel more organized, more goal oriented, more focused? No. It reminds me that while I plan, God laughs. But planning is good. No planning, no degree. I just have to keep hearing the laughter to help me amend the plans. Right now, if God is listening and in human form, there are tear stained cheeks and an abdomen experience great pain from hearty laughter!

The book that launched a blog

We at Jervis Public Library received a donation from the Rome Area Chamber of Commerce to purchase books about business. One of the titles purchased was One Year to an Organized Work Life. Those who know me know that I am always on the lookout for new organizing tips and tools. There is always far too much to do to be scattered. Well, I browsed through the book and decided that this really does suit me. However, since it is a process, and not a book filled with tips, it lends itself well to tracking progress. Miss Lorie's blog about simplifying life came to mind, so I decided to follow her into the blogosphere with getting my work life more organized. Ready or not, here I come!

In honor of the activity, I chose minima as the template for the blog. However, in true LM fashion, that just didn't work for me, so I have already changed it. I'm usually only a content conscious person, but the idea of the blog not being pretty enough for people to look at gave me the hives.