v43.9: Excogitating No Stress – Day 4

Good afternoon folks,

-slurp-

Yes, here I am sitting at my desk at 3PM drinking a coffee.  You're probably all wondering what happened to "Excogitating No Stress - Day 3" and if you read Day 2 you would know that I was off yesterday.  I had every intention to write but unfortunately I didn't find the time to sit and write anything at all.  I did, however, have a great day off and of course there was no stress since there was no work.  Today, again, I have had little to no stress in my work day.  I've been busy (very busy) and going almost non-stop all day, but I haven't stressed over it.  Even when one of the developers on my team resigned (yesterday while I was out), I still wasn't stressed about it.  I think this whole "No Stress" thing is working.

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Well since I had no work yesterday (and no stress), and today has been pretty much stress free, I guess you could almost say my experiment has been a success.  Tomorrow will be a week and I will find some way to document my findings and publish them here.  In fact, I just gave myself a great idea for a new section on my site to keep track of stress and stress levels; keep an eye out for that to show up soon.  Tomorrow being Friday, I doubt there will be much in the way of stress happening.  Although I do have to work Friday night for a few hours, I'm sure it will be stress free and relaxing.  I will say, my frame of mind while at work has been different.  I don't let things build up and bother me like they have been.  I don't get down about the job and I greet each task with a smile.  The key to keeping your shit together while at work is prioritizing and I will definitely write more on that at a later day.  Let me just add that not everyone knows how to prioritize and those who say they do are usually doing it wrong.  There is a right way and a wrong way to prioritize and hopefully I will be able to help someone out there with my experiences and suggestions.

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Ok folks, a shorter musing today only because of the things I need to finish up before I leave for the day.  If you are taking part in my stress free week experiment, I hope things are going just as well for you.  I would really like to hear your experiences this week and how you've been able to ward off the evil that is stress.  Until next time, remember to change your underwear every single day.  Of course if you shit your pants, you can change them more than once a day; in fact, I highly recommend it.

Cheers,

Al

v43.8: Excogitating No Stress – Day 2

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

Though technically it is morning, it is almost noon my time.  I've had a busy stress free morning this morning and have been loving every minute of it.  Yesterday turned out to be quite successful.  It started off busy, but I made a conscious decision to not feel stress over it.  I spent the majority of the morning pouring over email threads that kept me busy most of the weekend.  I believe I mentioned yesterday that I ended up spending a good chuck of my weekend working and then I was working again last night.  In fact, other than the drive from work to home, I worked from 9AM to 10:30PM straight.  It sounds stressful, but when you have a no stress attitude, it was really a walk in the park.  As a result of the extra hours over the weekend and last night, I now have no work tomorrow; nothing like a break in the middle of a no stress week to help alleviate any stress that may come.

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Overall I'm quite happy about how things went yesterday.  Despite being busy and having lots of work to do, it was really quite care free.  I did my job, put my head down, had a few laughs with my coworkers and overall had a good day.  I had a smile on my face which (as my coworkers can attest to), is not that common these days.  You see folks, I take my job seriously and I do a god job in that.  I spend a lot of extra hours working and ensuring things are running as smoothly as possible.  I lead a team of developers and often I take on work that could otherwise be delegated in order to help alleviate some of the strain and stress on my team.  I don't mind working the extra hours because at the end of the day if the customer is happy, work is good.  We are working on a major development project right now which has a lot of eyes on it.  The team has done an amazing job pulling together and getting the project finished up and we are getting close to a finished product.  I'm happy with the way things have gone so far.  We've had some bumps in the road along the way, but we have worked through them and things are moving along.  While the team has been focused on this task, I have been trying to take care of the other things that go on in a development team such as this.  I've found myself up many nights developing, debugging and doing code reviews to ensure my days can be focused on the things that are needed.  It has been exhausting, but rewarding at the same time.  I get things done and thanks to my team, we have been successful and are perceived a success.

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Well folks, time to get back to it.  Yesterday was a success and today is shaping up to be successful as well.  I'm excited to see how things are when I'm back in the office Thursday.  Obviously tomorrow will be "work" stress free, but I'll still do my best to write regardless.

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I hope you are all having a nice stress free day today.  Remember to always tip when going to a restaurant.  Servers have amazing memories and if you ever plan on going back to eat at that restaurant, you may get something added to your meal you didn't order. :)

Cheers,

Al

v43.7: Excogitating No Stress - Day 1

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

This is day 1 of a 5 day experiment where I attempt to create a stress free working environment by managing my perception at work.  Today will be a true test of this especially after the working weekend I had and the fallout of that weekend hitting me head on this morning.  The goal is to put a smile on my face, take on a carefree attitude and see what kind of productivity I can get out of my day.  Since this is only Day 1, I obviously can't let everyone know how it will go (yet), so tomorrow's musing will have a bit more details in it as well as an update on how I did today.

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With that said, I have a busy morning this morning with a bunch of meetings to attend.  The fallout from the weekend is also something I will need to take care of this morning.  I will need to cut things a bit short so I can focus and get these things out of the way.  Apologies for the shorter than usual musing this morning; tomorrow will be better.

Cheers,

Al

v43.6: Floccinaucinihilipilification Friday

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

It's Friday!  TGIF, Day of Frigg, Fredag Day, Day of Venus or whatever else you want to call it.  For me it signifies the end of a brutal work week and the birth of a relaxing weekend.  In some cultures, Friday is considered unlucky (or Dies Infaustus) and if you read up on it, there are so many different superstitions around the day I find it hard to believe that anyone can be happy on such a glorious day.  Of course the only reason most of us like the day is because it ends our work week.

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Enough about Friday.  There is so much information out there regarding this particular day that I could spend all day (and several musings) writing about it.  Let's just say that I'm happy it's Friday and I'm looking forward to leaving work today and starting my weekend.

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I am also looking forward to starting work next week.  If you haven't read the last couple musings you're probably picking yourself off the floor from the shock.  I should have made sure everyone was sitting down before announcing such a shocking statement.  If you haven't been following along the past couple days, you won't know that I plan on performing a little experiment next week to see if I can reduce stress levels and become more productive at work.  I performed this same experiment a few years back (ok, 8 years back) and it was quite successful.  The big difference here is I don't have a vacation waiting for me at the other end.  This will be a true test.

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You are all probably wondering what the word "floccinaucinihilipilification" means.  I used it in the title of the musing because I've used the words "Fantastic", "Fabulous", and may other common adjectives to describe Friday.  Today I wanted to put a little spin on it and (most likely) cause all your spell checkers to scream wildly when you loaded the page.  It basically means "the act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant".  Of course you could shorten this word down quite a bit by simply saying "Meh".  However, since Meh does not begin with F, I could not use it.  After all, how was I supposed to use alliteration to create my musing subject (and be witty at the same time) by using a the word Meh?

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Well folks, time to get back to the grind and see what my day has in store for me.  Lots of coding and DB work to do today so I the sooner I can get to it, the sooner I can leave.  I hope everyone has a great Friday and an amazing weekend.

Cheers,

Al

v43.5: Beaver!

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

I have recently been watching the TV comedy "How I Met Your Mother".  My sister introduced me to this show a few months back and recently it showed up on Netflix (first 7 seasons).  I decided to sit down and start watching it a month ago and I'm already into Season 7.  There were a lot of funny episodes but one that I found the most humorous was the Beaver episode.  Here is a short clip that was made from that episode; hopefully it brings a smile and a laugh to someone out there.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hqklWJxUTo

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Ahh, good laughs had by all.  Hopefully this video brightened someone's Thursday.  Only 2 more days left until the weekend!  Looking forward to next week and my stress free experiment.

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Cheers,

Al

v43.4: Stressed

Good morning folks,

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Last night I was going through some old musings and came across a musing I wrote back in May 2005.  I was counting down the days before my vacation and had a series of musings that week (v4.7 - v5.1) where I ran a little experiment.  It was a de-stress experiment which, according to my musings, was quite successful.  I had completely forgotten about doing that (it was almost 8 years ago after all) so after reading it last night, I felt it would be good to bring it back and give it another try.  You can read the original musing HERE, but to summarize: I had determined that the link between work and stress is all in your head.  If you go to work planning to do the absolute minimum, you can be more productive due to the lack of stress you're feeling about doing your job.  As mentioned, my experiment was a success and despite going to work with the intent to do as little as possible, it was my most productive week ever.

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So here's my plan.  Since it's already hump day today, it doesn't make much sense to run another experiment starting in the middle of the week.  Therefore, starting next Monday I will attempt this experiment again and see how it goes.  Just to be clear, this isn't about coming to work with the expectation to do nothing at all, it is about adjusting your mindset to not go crazy and think about your job and the things you need to do from day-to-day.  This experiment won't work for everyone and if you're in a volatile position at work, I wouldn't recommend doing it.  While I'm sure you would all prefer to sit and dwell on work during your evenings and morning commutes, I think the reason a lot of us are over stressed in our jobs these days is due to the fact we dwell on our work much too often.  I know I do it and I suspect a lot of you do as well.

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This means starting next week I will be writing every day for the duration of the week; documenting my progress and hopefully come up with some witty banter and humorous musings.  It's been a long time (as I noticed while reading through them last night) since I've had a really good and amusing musing (see what I did there?).  It also may be a fun exercise to have others join me in this experiment.  After I muse each day, you will be able to comment on the musing and I would love to hear how your own day went and whether you've noticed a change in your overall mindset about work and the stress that it often causes.  Feel free to rant or bitch about your day (if you need to) and let me know how things went overall.  It will be interesting to see how many of us actually go through the work week and truly feel less stressed because of this experiment.

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As already mentioned, please don't attempt this if things at work are volatile right now.  I would hate for anyone to lose their job because they were taking part in one of my experiments.  For those of you who are quite stressed at work and are not able to take part, I urge you to try to not dwell on work during your evenings.  Try to leave work AT work and resume when you return.  I know this is easier said than done (I'm living proof), but by dwelling on work after you've left work, you are basically still at work and will never truly be able to enjoy that downtime you so desperately deserve.  Work isn't easy, hence why they call it "work", but it doesn't have to consume your entire life.  Have some fun with this and experiment on your own.  I've provided you a very lose guide on what I will be doing so take that and adjust it to your own work needs.  Good luck everyone!
Well folks this musing has taken much too long to write due to "work".  I'll wrap things up here and if I don't have a chance to write before the weekend, see you all back here Monday.-slurp-

Cheers,

Al

 

v43.3: A New Year

Howdy folks,

I'm sure I already have a musing with this title in here somewhere (have been doing this since November 2003 after all) but I figured what the hell.  Happy New Year!

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I figure since it was a new year and we all survived the ending of the Mayan calendar and the afore-mentioned end of the world, I should probably write something.  I could sit here and make up any number of excuses as to why I haven't written:

1. I figured the word was going to end anyway so why waste the last of my days writing to only have it all burn up in an apocalyptic ending.


2. I misplaced my keyboard


3. I've been tied up in the basement of a crazy Musings over Coffee fan who has been making me write personal, erotic musings just for them (-slurp- {shudder})


4. All of the above

In all seriousness, I really haven't been inspired to write these days.  Every time I look at the site I try to think up some brainy, witty thing to write about and my mind goes blank.  Then the words of my mother echo through my head, "I hope your kids grow up to be just as bad as you so you can see what it feels like!".  Wait, that has nothing to do with what I was trying to convey.  Oh well, I guess what I'm trying to say is I have no good excuse for not writing for the past few months other than I'm just lazy and uninspired.  Over the holidays I put a lot of thought into it, I read a few of the articles on "Write to Done" and I spoke to some people.  The end result was a semi-New Year's resolution to write "something".

Those of you who know me know I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions.  That said, I decided to give writing a semi-New Year's resolution to see how it goes.  I don't know how long it will last, but it will get you at least one musing out of me this year :)

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I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.  If you celebrated Christmas, I hope Santa found you and didn't scare you in the middle of the night as he went through your stuff.  Personally I think we are much too trusting of letting a fat man with a sooty beard rummage through our houses while we're asleep.  When you sit and think about that, it almost begs people to break into our houses on Christmas eve and steal all our stuff.  I mean who's going to get up if they hear rummaging around on Christmas eve?  I know I wouldn't; I would stay snug in my bed knowing that good ol' St Nick was there.  Wouldn't I be surprised the next morning when I sprang from my bed all my stuff was gone :)

Of course, I merely jest.

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Well folks, just a short one today.  I had to spend a bit of time fixing up the site due to an upgrade complication over the holidays.  I think I fixed most of the issues so hopefully things look good from your end.  If you are seeing any problems with the site (formatting issues, error/warning messages, etc.) please don't hesitate to contact me.  Until next time, please don't run with scissors.  It may seem like fun and exciting at the time, but think of the poor spider who's web you've just inadvertently cut due to your negligence.

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Cheers,

Al