Resolved
LIke many of you I skip the tradition of making New Year's Resolutions. (I call it February's Guilt List).
I did, on the other hand, take advantage of the new promise of a new year and rearranged my work schedule. My schedule is, by design, a little bit of a logic puzzle. The requirements: One hour of telephone supervision with each of six teams per week. Each of those requires about two hours of preparation on my part. Add to that 30 minutes telephone supervision each week with the each of the leaders of those six teams. Plus two conference calls each week with other people and several monthly calls with various groups. Sounds doable until the bonus requirement is added to the mix: I have to do all of these calls and preparation on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. (Thursdays and Fridays have to be left open for a bunch of other non-telephone-related stuff.)
By about November last year I was feeling pretty beat up by my schedule. All of those calls and hours of prep time have to happen regardless of whether I am at home or on the road, and I was on the road doing other things at the same time A LOT. The tasks weren't spread out well enough to allow any time for things like eating lunch or taking a break. Mondays and Tuesdays were overly loaded and it was wearing me slap out.
So I took advantage of other people's perceptions of the new year being a new start and made serious changes to my schedule. I required almost all of my teams and supervisors to change their times so that the whole thing was kinder to me.
The result is a schedule in which I can choose to get up early or choose to work late. My calls are arranged in such a way that I have time to eat a proper lunch and take a walk in the middle of the work day. I have time (for heaven's sake) now to actually leave the office and go pee on a regular basis.
Last week (the first week of the new schedule) I chose to work a little later every evening so that I could sleep late every morning. Friday was a holiday here in Sweden and I STILL managed to get absolutely everything done that I had on my to-do list AND I took back 3 of the compensation hours due me. And I ate lunch with Björn when I wanted to. And I had time to take a walk (although the stormy weather prevented it).
Next week I'm back on the road Thursday and Friday but I'm feeling great about the fact the I will return home Friday evening with yet another work week with all tasks checked off.
That's what I call a resolution.
I did, on the other hand, take advantage of the new promise of a new year and rearranged my work schedule. My schedule is, by design, a little bit of a logic puzzle. The requirements: One hour of telephone supervision with each of six teams per week. Each of those requires about two hours of preparation on my part. Add to that 30 minutes telephone supervision each week with the each of the leaders of those six teams. Plus two conference calls each week with other people and several monthly calls with various groups. Sounds doable until the bonus requirement is added to the mix: I have to do all of these calls and preparation on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. (Thursdays and Fridays have to be left open for a bunch of other non-telephone-related stuff.)
By about November last year I was feeling pretty beat up by my schedule. All of those calls and hours of prep time have to happen regardless of whether I am at home or on the road, and I was on the road doing other things at the same time A LOT. The tasks weren't spread out well enough to allow any time for things like eating lunch or taking a break. Mondays and Tuesdays were overly loaded and it was wearing me slap out.
So I took advantage of other people's perceptions of the new year being a new start and made serious changes to my schedule. I required almost all of my teams and supervisors to change their times so that the whole thing was kinder to me.
The result is a schedule in which I can choose to get up early or choose to work late. My calls are arranged in such a way that I have time to eat a proper lunch and take a walk in the middle of the work day. I have time (for heaven's sake) now to actually leave the office and go pee on a regular basis.
Last week (the first week of the new schedule) I chose to work a little later every evening so that I could sleep late every morning. Friday was a holiday here in Sweden and I STILL managed to get absolutely everything done that I had on my to-do list AND I took back 3 of the compensation hours due me. And I ate lunch with Björn when I wanted to. And I had time to take a walk (although the stormy weather prevented it).
Next week I'm back on the road Thursday and Friday but I'm feeling great about the fact the I will return home Friday evening with yet another work week with all tasks checked off.
That's what I call a resolution.