It’s been a while. A
little more than a month, if memory serves, since there was the major and abrupt change in
life. A 35 year career in radio came
to an end and a new adventure began with
Optimist International. www.optimist.org
Some observations.
There is no doubt anymore that we are creatures of habit and
most comfortable in a routine. It took almost three weeks to develop a new
method of operation after discarding the
old one which had morphed into a mundane
existence. This was complicated by working at home. I had become a “bunny slipper” employee who
was able to roll out of bed, make a cup of cinnamon orange tea, turn on a
computer and be at the office. It can be fairly easy to slack off and I had
actually worried some about having a lot less structure in my work day as
opposed to a life which had been dictated by the second hand of a clock for so
long,
Lessons Learned. It’s
actually easy to develop the new routine if you focus on it for a week. Make notes of when you open email, tackle a project, get up to go to the
bathroom, and in my case, walk the dog. (Maggie looks forward to 11:30 every
morning) You should be able to find a
comfort zone for completing these and other tasks on a daily basis and before
the week is over the new method of operation has come into
focus.
People exposure is another issue. Working at home means its just me and the
dog. I counselor friend of mine told me
once you have to purposely get out and see people or you’ll go batty, not to
mention lose your interaction skills. A
simple, short errand or two during the day has taken care of this issue. If they take longer than the traditional
lunch hour so be it. Working from home doesn’t
even come close to clock punching and since there’s no commute it easy to work
late if the need arises. Besides at
Optimist International, www.optimist.org conference calls in the evening and weekend
meetings with some of the 90 thousand volunteers who make up the organization
are the norm.
Change is normal. It
happens every day. The last month of so
has shown, though, that fear can be the biggest stumbling block to working
through change. I contend we all can
cast fear aside and, in a sometimes methodical fashion, easily overcome it. It also helps to know, through
faith, that someone else has your back.
It is good to be back on the blog. Be well.
