Going to bed

Written in the last 13 minutes of May 2011

Sometimes going to bed is too much trouble.  Wouldn’t it be great if on days when you needed to just keep going you could skip the whole night part – just swoop right into the next day feeling refreshed and energized without missing a beat?  I have been trying to catch up this evening and got carried away on all things digital.  It’s now 11:47 and I am trying to shut my brain off, except I can’t.  I also have a 4 1/2 year old in my bed because she fell out of hers.  It is only the second or third time she has done that in two years, so we are thankful.  But she was really startled this evening so we shuffled her into our bed about 30 minutes ago. I’m not anxious to compete for a piece of the king size bed…she is tiny but takes up so much space.  I am milking this quiet time in between the night and morning.

Milk the principles of exercise to help manage keeping up at work

If you follow this blog you know that I am challenged with finding time where I feel like working out.  So in addition to the stairs (I managed to do 30 flights today), I am also starting to do the add one sit up and one push up everyday.  I started this with my friend Donna at work.  We don’t do this at work, but we make sure we are both sticking to the plan.  We’re on day four, so we’re doing very well so far – four sit ups and four push ups – who can’t do that?!

I am applying a similar approach to keeping up with all the news in my industry.  You can’t possibly keep up with everything, but you can get yourself organized in such a way that you can add things in on a gradual basis and before you know it you are reading  new blogs (MarketingProfs), watching another TED video (Sheryl Sandberg) and following new people on Twitter (@jowyang).

Friday Afternoon Transition

Today when I ran to South Station to catch my train my thoughts collided with each other. I wasn’t done with work but time was telling me to focus on home and what had to get done. As I completed conference calls and answered emails on the train, a stream of thoughts were running below like the stock ticker on the bottom of the news – what birthday parties do we have to attend? What new foods should I feed the babies? Why are we having an open house again? Will anyone buy our house? Where should I get jeans and fitted for new bras? What size am I now? What am I going to have for dinner?

My husband called me while I was on the train and said that he had a work dinner. I was thrilled. I knew that I could get the children to sleep and then I could complete work so I would be free to enjoy the weekend. I dangled Grey’s Anatomy in front of me to keep the focus on getting the work done. Dan called to let me know that he and his work colleague were coming to the house while they waited for the table at the restaurant. They stopped my flow by talking to me and giving me great wine. Once they left I still had 80 emails, but at least I had a good feeling in my veins to keep me going. I didn’t get to Grey’s but I milked the wine until I got to the last unread email.

Now I can switch my personal life to be on top and the work stuff can take up residency on the ticker until Monday when we start again.