Personal management – Page 4

Dealing with the unpleasant gracefully

There’s a creature-wrangler in every home. Depending on the part of the world you live in, the creatures in question might range from the small to very large, the innocuous to the life-threatening. I’m the designated spider-evictor/creature-wrangler in my house. Despite my best intentions, I don’t always do the job with good grace.

On Feeling Stuck

There’s a feeling I get sometimes. It’s a stressful, sometimes even anxious feeling. And it comes from feeling stuck, creatively or practically. Having come back from a week’s vacation, I should have been feeling energised, but instead, I had a feeling of a significant loss of traction, and it took me a little while to figure out why.

A loss of inspiration

My writing over the past few months has been a bit sporadic. I’ve been less inspired than usual to write, and fewer connections have come to mind. I’ve been thinking about the causes of this for a while – not wanting to put it down to the situation with Covid-19. I believe I’ve figured out what’s wrong – I’m missing two usually familiar sources of inspiration.

Being present with the “what is”

Many of us are living with the “what if” and “never was”. This is just one of the impacts of a world put on pause by the global pandemic caused by Covid-19. My youngest refers to it as “the germ” – a previously unknown entity that has thrown all of our plans into a heap. We all know people who have had to cancel significant birthday celebrations, anniversaries, holidays or even weddings.

We have lost significant life events to this virus, causing us to ask “what if” and regret the timing of the events we could and cannot control. My suggestion is to focus on the “what is”; to accept and adapt to the present and to make the best of what we have.

Living, in an uncertain time

We are in an unprecedented, extraordinary time. As I write this, something like half of the world’s population is either in lockdown or in a state of restricted movement. It’s a totalitarian dream! We’re all trying to work together to protect our most vulnerable, but at the same time, we need to focus on living and growing. So how do we do that if we’re confined to our homes?

Procrastination and Prioritisation

I met someone at an event recently who asked: “Where did you find time to write your book?” If you’ve not seen the recent blog post, I published a book on management on January 16th. The answer I provided to him was two-fold: prioritise and avoid procrastinating.

My First Book – Even Tougher Than Herding Cats

After roughly a year of work, I’ve completed the book I was writing titled “Even Tougher Than Herding Cats”.

The book is focussed on management advice for newly minted managers and those taking on broader management and leadership roles.

I know people say “It’s been a labour of love!” and it really has. Not just because I enjoy writing but because my family love me enough to allow me to pursue this kind of time-consuming project when I’m already away from them a lot because of my day job.

The book is available to order through Amazon Kindle Publishing services, with a published date of January 16th, 2020.

If you enjoy reading the blog, and you would like to support the book, I would really appreciate you picking up a copy (or five!).

While I enjoy writing, it is challenging. The response to this book will determine whether I invest the time I borrowed from my family to write another.

Thanks for your support, and please let me know what you think.