Getting Back On Track
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Oct 10, 2009
It's been a tough last two weeks. The first 12 days were tough because I was worried about my mother's health. At that point, almost all work shut down, as I had to deal with that issue in the best way I could. At this point, I think I got a handle on it, and Mom's doing well.
I went out of town two Sundays ago, came home for a weekend, then went back for a few days. I had to see for myself that things I'd put into place were working, and they were. So, on Wednesday afternoon, I got to come back home. Now it was time to get down to work again.
Only, I found that I just couldn't get there. The rest of Wednesday was mainly sitting at my desk trying to get my mind back into work mode. It's hard for people who just get back from vacation to immediately get into work mode; I certainly wasn't on vacation. I did a couple of things Wednesday, but not much. I gave myself a break on that day.
Thursday was something else. I went to the SOHO Business Show here in Syracuse, which had better presentations than they've had in the past, but still low attendance, which is very disappointing. Now there's an event I think I could actually market, which is funny since I'm bad at marketing myself. I also had a phone meeting at 3:30, which negated networking, but meetings that may end up producing cash are important. I did get my newsletter written for the day, but not much else.
Friday was something else again. Had my morning meeting with the Professional Consultants Association of Central New York, of which I'm not only a board member, but I write the newsletter and manage the website. It wasn't bad, and we actually had new guests, but I can't figure out why we can't seem to reach even 30 members for this group, as there's at least a couple hundred consultants in this area, and I know I'm keeping the count way down. Then I went to this guy's office to help him with one thing and ended up fixing something else; just can't stop myself. I left there to go to a lunch meeting all across town, which was important as it concerns another organization of which I'm also on the board, Mid York Medical Management Association, another group that's suffering from a lack of membership (I'm going to have to write on this topic).
Then it was back home for another phone meeting at 3PM, which lasted just over 40 minutes. After that kind of day, who was in the mood to do any work, especially on a Friday?
Now it's Saturday morning, and the Syracuse University Orangemen play West Virginia in about 30 minutes; no way I'm going to start working through that. All of this diversion, and I have one project that has to be completed by Sunday evening and another I need to start Monday morning, even though I have another meeting on Monday for another organization, Arise Inc, where I'm not only a board member, but the finance committee chairperson; yeow!
I've handled this much activity, and more, in my past. I will figure out how to get back on track here pretty soon; I have to, as this is how I make my living. I really need to focus more, make better plans. But it does prove just how easy it is to allow outside influences of all types to take you off the track of what you need to be doing. Everyone has periods where they battle to get back on track. The idea is to not stay on that train of inactivity for too long; it's too easy to get used to.