Month: March 2024

Use It

/ Scott / Leave a comment

Last week my wife and I were walking through a wetland on a trail that lead to an Oregon beach that not many people visit. I was wearing a favorite sun hat that had a wide brim that would keep my face and neck protected from the sun. As was my habit, I did not have the chinstrap secure. This would turn out to be a big mistake.

As we were walking, a gust of wind lifted the had straight off my head. I watched in slow motion as I unsuccessfully reached for the hat, and watched it sail over a thick hedge and into a creek surrounded by a swampy inaccessible marsh. It was gone, and I wasn’t getting it back.

It’s not a big deal to lose a hat. Even though I really liked that hat, I can, and did, get another one. What was frustrating to me was that I would still have it, if I had only used the hat’s chinstrap. Chinstraps, much like seatbelts, sunscreen, and other preventative devices, can only do their job if you use them.

I’m reminded that preventative devices like, chinstraps, can’t work if we don’t use them.

Change Gears

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This week I was working on a project that just wasn’t coming together.  The task I was trying to complete became a problem solve to solve.  I worked for the better part of a day on it and still wasn’t having much success.  While I am confident I’ll find a solution, I decided it was time to change gears.

Since I was stuck on this particular task, I decided to change gears and focus on another task that involved a slightly different skillset.  It was great, because I able to make some great headway on this part of the project, while letting my subconscious work on the other task I was having trouble with.

Sometimes I find it’s helpful to focus on something else, instead of continuing to head down a dead end.  Pointing our mind in a new direction can help us gain some success and hopefully come back to the challenging task with a fresh mind ready to solve the problem.

I’m eager to see how this works for me.

Waiting For Perfect

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I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of “waiting for perfect” before making a decision.  Perhaps we were waiting for the perfect scenario, circumstance, job, opportunity, or even person to show up before we committed to taking action.   In some cases, we might even be waiting for perfect from ourselves. 

This will come as no surprise: if we’re delaying action while we wait for perfect to arrive, we’ll be waiting a long time.

A better choice might be to consider good enough for now.

No, I’m not telling you to make bad choices, or to say “Yes” to dangerous or harmful people or things.  What I am suggesting is lifting the expectation of perfection in everything, and considering the very good possibilities that are now available.  You’ll find there are far more very good options than perfect ones.    

Deciding to Deprioritize

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I’ve been consistently making weekly blog posts here since January of 2013.  During that time, I’ve only missed posting 3 or 4 times, and was because I simply forgot.  Last week was the first I intentionally decided NOT to write a weekly post.  It was a busy week with too much to do and not enough time to do everything on my list, so I decided to forego the weekly blog post… and that’s OK.

While I like the discipline of putting a weekly thought into words, I equally dislike putting undue stress on myself.  I simply looked at all I had to do and did some prioritization.  Quite simply, writing a blog post last week wasn’t a high enough priority, and didn’t make the cut.

I share that story for two reasons.  First, so that you might consider letting lower priority items drop from your “To Do” list, either for the short or longer term, when you list exceeds the time you have available.  Second, so that you might not feel guilty about deciding to drop a lower priority item on your list.