Stop the world, I want to get off
Filed under: Light relief, Personal, Personal Develoment — Tags: Light relief, Personal, work life balance —
Posted: 4:47 pm
3 January 2009
Like most people I spend almost every working day racing around seeing people, speaking with them on the phone, rushing home at night to see the wife and kids. This I have done for many years so much so that it has become the normal speed of things and I am always in a rush. More recently though I have started to look at things a little more deeply and found that I don’t like all the rushing but what can you do to stop this? The single thing that made me realise that I needed to stop rushing was when I was taking my little boy to bed, as I do most nights, and he was doing what most 5 year olds do and that was mess about. Now Tom has not had a really normal bedtime routine since he was two before his little brother was born. This is because little Danny was born with problems which meant we have spent the last 2 1/2 years in hospital see www.potter-tate.co.uk for more info. Anyway, it was around 8pm and he was messing and rushing as usual I said to him “come on Tom, I’ve got work to do if you don’t stop messing then no story”. It wasn’t till I got downstairs and sat down at my computer that in dawned on me that in actual fact what I was rushing down to do was neither that important or in fact a “real” job that needed doing.
So I am resolved that while I cannot slow down the work pace while doing on-demand work what I can do is slow down outside of work. I am also resolved to doing things different to the way I have before. So earlier today I decided to walk to our local shop, something which I have NEVER done in the whole time that we have lived at this house which is almost 7 years. The local shop is only about 3/4 mile away and while I going running three times a week and pass it then I have never walked to the shop. You should try it sometime, it’s a surefire way to completely spin out your partner/wife. I said to Julie “I think I’ll walk to the shop”, you should have seen the look on her face. It couldn’t have been more stunned if I had said that I was catching a flight to the other side of the world! So leaving behind a rather confused Julie I walked to the shops, the thing was I ended up looking round with almost schoolboy fascination at houses that I had seen before but never really looked at.
So if you are looking for a New Years Resolution try this, “Do something once a week different to the way you have always done it”.
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New year, new start
Filed under: Business, Personal, Personal Develoment — Tags: growth, Personal, personal development —
Posted: 11:56 am
2 January 2009
For those who have followed this blog in the past you will know and see that I have been very quite since summer. The reasons for this are many but most of them are due to personal circumstances which have knocked my life completely off kilter and have no only taken a lot of physical time but it has also significantly hurt my drive on a day to day basis. This in itself is a self perpetuating downward spiral in which you don’t do certain takes or maintain aspects of your life because you haven’t got the “get up and go” to do it but then you end up resenting, even hating yourself for no doing it. Then as time goes by you end up putting things off repeatedly until finally they are way overdue and almost impossible to recover from. Why am I laying this on the line and telling you? Quite simply I have been there and have now vowed to turn things around, it is a hard thing to admit that things have gotten out of control but it is much harder, in my opinion, to recover from.
With that in mind I want to commit, publicly, to maintaining at least two posts a week here whether it tech news, geek stuff or just how things are going. 2009 is a new year and while this is not a new year resolution, it is a life resolution, I just thought that it was a damn good time to start…leave behind the old and move forward.
So let me start by saying happy new year to you, all the success for the future and remember if you want to contact me please use the form above.
Regards
Rob.
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When the goings good…..
Filed under: Business, Personal Develoment —
Posted: 10:39 pm
14 April 2008
At the moment business is going from strength to strength which given the current economic climate is quite amazing because if the media are to be believed then we are on the brink of global recession. Now while I run an IT business I do not claim to be the global economist nor a great authority of all things financial, this is why we have accountants!, but that said I am able to do simple maths and see the obvious. What seems to be happening at the minute is the "credit crunch" a term which up until a few months ago never even existed and while this situation is very real it seem to have been brought about by the ever rising house prices and peoples need to own their own homes. This then led on to the banks continuing to lend money in whatever way they could some working on mortgages up to 50 years….mental. Now as a business owner I have taken a step back and looked what is happening in our business and in particular in our business sector. What I have seen is very little difference it last year, in fact to be quite honest we have been busier than ever with sales month in month out increasing by up to 200% which is excellent. So much so that I was asked recently what business I was looking for and I replied "None" as we are so busy. So what is really happening? Well I think that in this case beauty is in the eye of the beholder or in this case the future of the economy is in our own hands.
I truly believe if we continue to bang on the recession drum and preach to all who will listen that a end is coming then it will come. If that same energy is channeled into driving our businesses forward and working hard to keep everything going then it truly will. One of the great stories that shows what can be done with a little determination is "The pursuit of happyness", for those that do not know it follows the story of "Chris Gardner’s" dream of making a success and getting rich; its a real story of rags to riches. So what do we need to do to get things moving, well here’s my opinion for what it’s worth:
- Focus on what your clients need and supply it, provide what they are asking for and not what you want to.
- Listen to what the media are saying and incorporate it into your plans but do not let it be of detriment to the business
- Believe that what you are providing will give value to your clients because if you don’t believe it then why should they
- Always remain positive, it will drive you forward each day and will carry those around you with it, remember when you smile the whole world smiles
Ok as I say not a global economist by any stretch of the imagination and it certainly is not the secret to success, but if you work hard and believe in these things then it will help drive your business further.
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