Monday, what a drag. You know how sometimes nothing goes wrong enough to make a fuss but somehow everything sucks just bad enough to leave you hollow by the day’s end? Yeah – that.
Monday evening – read Laurie Ruettimann’s blog post – felt better, more purposeful again.
Tuesday, quick out of the blocks. I always get excited when orders for Stop Doing Dumb Things come in, and I’m due a delivery from the printer with new stock too. While I wait for the DHL van to show I kick down my to do list.
- Write up recent talk notes and publish on Scribd – tick!
- Annotate and publish slides from Ohio – tick!
- Arrange a bunch of meetings – tick!
- Draft report for a client – tick!
- Write and publish newsletter – tick!
Tick, tick, tick – I’m on the case, take that Tuesday! Delivery arrives – world turns upside down.
The top row is how the cards are supposed to look, the bottom row is what has arrived from the printers. Ouch! I reminded myself – ‘keep calm, there’s a solution in here somewhere’, and rang the printer. It turns out that three orders, including this restock, are all wrong. And to rub salt into the wound – some are going direct to clients, and the correct card template has been overwritten. The problem only affects a few cards in each deck but long story short, I am going to have to rebuild the complete set again from scratch.
Time to take my medicine and get on with it. I start on Tuesday afternoon and finish on…
Wednesday. After several hours of retyping, setting and colouring I’m done. Proof it – approve it – get on with it. Wednesday afternoon is all about prepping my management accounts and playing catch up, and so too is…
Thursday. I’m getting on with stuff, and yet drifting a bit, suffering some kind of sorry for myself post panic hangover. Then I check an email that arrived during all the hoohah from Joan, who I met two months ago in Illinois. It said:
‘You definitely made an impact in my world and the story you shared about your father’s pocket watch is still with me. I’ve started to follow your blog & professional posts as I so enjoy your writing. Wishing you a great day. Thanks again for all you do & share to help everyone else be better & do good things!’
Two things. 1 – Thanks Joan, what a lovely note. 2 – I think my week sucks – who am I kidding? Something went wrong, it got fixed, nobody died. I got a whole bunch of stuff done and best of all, Joan appreciates me. What’s not to like, dumbass! (Note: I’m talking to me right there, not you).
For the most part I have an optimistic outlook, and yet this week is a great reminder for me: negative stuff is a fact of life, it creeps in – and boy does it grow quickly when you let it. I think Meatloaf said it best when he sang: Bad things in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are. Or something.
I’m off to read Laurie’s post again, then I’m going to take Friday off and make a long weekend of it. May your week also close out in spectacular fashion.