In three of my four previous blogs, I wrote about getting out of a slump. I think I can officially say that I am out of it. I hit a few of the goals I set out to meet by Halloween - not all, but I'm pretty happy in general. I wish I could have done more with my Peer Coach,, but our schedules have clashed drastically. I have gotten more organized and focused at work and though home has been more stressful, it's been more fun. I have not gotten fully into “Getting Things Done,” but I have put in e-mail filters and just let things ride without responding. The problems seem to get themselves resolved a lot of the time.
Here are some hints that might help in a similar situation.
Small victories - I spent an hour straightening up the basement and my workspace just seems much clearer.
Focus on the one goal - I got the back yard winterized in one afternoon, which was a new world record and the first time in 10 years I managed to get that done.
Be present in what you are doing - Last weekend we went in search of a piano for the house. We had a very limited budget and had to go to a few places that were about forty-five minutes away from home. Scheduling snafu's abounded, we started Saturday at noon and finished Sunday at around 8pm. I didn't worry about how this ruined all of the things that we had planned, but enjoyed time with the family. Even though we didn't get to the errands run that we needed to, we were together.
Put the phone away - My wife and I are very conscious about not constantly looking at e-mails. I was horrible about this for a long time and I struggle with it. We have a rule of no phones at the dinner table. I was noticing when we were on one of our many kill-time-while-we-wait-for-someone-to-show-up detours that everyone in the restaurant was looking at their phones. I was proud of myself and my family that we were not.
Talk to someone - Talking about your slump is good. I don't think that anyone I talked to about the slump really said anything. I don't think the conversation was more than "Man, I'm in a slump," followed by, "That sucks, me too" and then we changed the subject.
"At the end of the day, things get done." - this was something my father's boss said after a particularly stressful conversation about the lack of movement on a particular project. The point of this wasn't that there was nothing to worry about, but that the good news and progress should be recognized and not ignored. Nothing in life is perfect. Try to keep things in perspective.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/read-this-if-you-want-to-be-happy-in-2014/2014/01/02/d96370f0-7192-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html
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