I love my new Dunkin’ Coffee Mugs.
Got one in each color: blue and orange.
Inside the mugs, there is a finger sign “V” (for victory) and it says “Be Awesome”.
These oversized mugs are so happy and I can’t wait to fill ’em up.
And they really do make me ready to “Wake Up” for a brand new day. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I liked this saying from someone in the IDF.
Be “flexible in tactics, but stay fixed on the goals!”
There are many ways to accomplish the same thing.
And different people have their own approaches.
As in the lyrics: “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road.”
That’s absolutely okay.
In fact, that’s one of the strengths and benefits of diversity.
We bring different ways of looking at the world to the table.
Hence, we can bounce fresh ideas off each other and come to a great way forward.
The main thing is that we focus on our goals and progress to achieve them.
Be rigid on goals and flexible in tactics. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Thought this was funny at work.
One person writes:
Be Happy. Have Fun.
Another chimes in:
Ok, I will!
And finally a 3rd person writes:
Me too.
Smiley faces and all.
Never take yourself too seriously.
It’s true–try to enjoy the ride! 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I love FANUC industrial robots.
They are made by a secretive company in Japan and they are #1 in workplace automation worldwide!
They have over half a million installed industrial robots around the world.
Their robots are on assembly lines making everything from “cars and smartphones to beverages and drugs.” They also are in Tesla and Amazon…so you know they are pretty much everywhere.
FANUC has customers in 108 countries supported by 263 service locations.
Their robots are made by…that’s right other robots…80% is automated.
These robots are strong, fast, and precise, and they can do dangerous work.
This company is the future of jobs, productivity, efficiency.
But of course, people are still the brains behind the brawn. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Daylight saving time makes NO sense.
It does NOT save us a lot of energy as designed.
Call it the wrong assumptions or bad science.
The law requiring daylight saving–switching the clocks (“Fall Back” and “Spring Forward”) is archaic and needs to be repealed.
We’re messing with people’s sleep cycles and their health.
People waking up groggy all over the country, feeling crappy during the day, and losing much needed productivity.
How about we repeal this stupid law NOW and not waste any more time on the squabbling politics of the day?
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So there is a popular saying:
“You can’t eat the elephant in one bite.”
The idea is that you need to break things down in little pieces to get them down.
If you try to eat the elephant in one bite, I assume that your mouth would easily split in half and your face would literally explode.
Similarly with projects, if you try to get to the nirvana end state in one fell swoop , the project explodes with complexity and risk, and you will fail miserably.
Thus, managing requirements and phasing them in chunks is critical to projects’ succeeding.
Sure, customers want to get the Promised Land immediately–where the projects have all the “bells and whistles”–but you don’t want to sacrifice getting the train on the tracks for the accouterments either.
Think big, but act small–little by little, one step at a time, you can actually eat an elephant. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So this is an interesting meeting facilitation technique.
Sometimes people get carried away in meetings either as broken records, spinning wheels, naysayers, or ever with verbal attacks.
In these case, either the facilitator or any of the other participants, can have permission to “call an ELMO.”
What that stands for is:
Enough,
Let’s
Move
On
When someone at the meeting calls an ELMO the meeting is redirected and focused back to the agenda and meeting objectives.
There are also times, you need a “parking lot” for good ideas that are a little offtrack or for sidebars that you want to come back to later.
At other times, you just need to say, “Let’s take it offline.”
Focused meetings should generate ideas (brainstorm), exchange points of view, surface problems, discuss issues, and make decisions.
A good meeting leaves people feeling energized, valued, informed, and productive. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Is being old an age, a feeling, or both?
Some people seem to get old before their time.
They go about echting and kretzching–at 40 and 50, they are saying this hurts and I feel crummy about that! Nu, I’m not 18 anymore!
Other people never, literally almost never seem to get old.
One lady I know is going to be 94 this month and she is going strong mentally, emotionally, and physically. It almost seems impossible.
This guy in the photo has a funny shirt on that says:
“I thought growing old would take longer.”
Yeah, it does sort of creep up on you, but really, really fast. Like where the heck did that come from!
I know inside for me, I always still feel like a kid.
I have the same funny side, playful side, and curious side; the desire to be productive and accomplish something meaningful with my life and time, and to love and be loved.
Yeah, things hurt a little more than they did years ago–can’t believe the things I used to be able to do–Yes, at one time, I use to break cinder blocks with my bare hands, true!
But now, I can do other things like swim and hike and I love to write things that I am passionate about or to be a little creative too!
Maybe we do not get old…maybe we are just like caterpillars that morph into something else like butterflies during this life and into the life beyond.
Age is experience, learning, growth–lots of mistakes–and then recovering and trying again and harder.
Life is wonderment and excitement and appreciation for every amazing beautiful thing.
No, life does not get old.
Suffering and loss gets old quick and wish it never was.
But we are physical bodies with eternal souls, so we go on and on into the wild blue yonder. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So happy Friday funday.
We work hard during the week, right.
Today in the office, we replaced some old metal clunker garbage cans with some new clean plastic ones.
The old ones, every time you threw a bottle or anything hard out, it made a crazy loud banging noise disrupting everyone.
I started to joke with my colleagues that the dirty, heavy old cans were more useful as a helmet in case of emergency evacuation of something.
So today the old metal junk cans got a happy face helmet head and a prestigious place next to the office plants.
Everyone had a good hearty laugh!
Honestly, it’s wonderful to be incredibly productive and accomplish a lot for the people, the mission, and all the stakeholders, and at the same time know how to have some fun and make people happy.
Good for morale and good for teamwork! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So here are some quickies on the essence of time management.
1. Urgency vs Importance:
Don’t sacrifice the important items for the urgent ones!
– Focus on the items that are important on the right side of the matrix–if they are urgent (upper-right), you need to do now; if they aren’t urgent, but they are important (lower-right), you need to make time for them.
– Deemphasize the items that aren’t important on the left side of the matrix–if they are urgent and not important (upper-left), limit them or delegate them; if they aren’t urgent or important (lower-left), delete them.
There are two potential areas of dissonance that can cause you tension, stress, and anxiety.
– When the urgent top row items and the lower-left life necessities get in the way of your focusing on the quality life items that are of long-term importance to you (the lower-left). For example, work and errands can crowd out your personal, family, community, and spiritual time.
– When you have too many items in the lower-right quality time area and these are in competition with each other for your time and attention, and you don’t know how to prioritize them and get it all done. It’s like there is never enough time. For example, we ignore our spouse, the kids, or closeness with G-d, because we just can’t get to it all.
This is where our personal values and conscience come into play to drive what we do and how we spend our precious time in this world.
We all only have 24 hours in a day, so our actions need to be purposeful and driven by our values!
2. Tasks vs Relationships
Imagine another matrix with focus on tasks on the vertical access and focus on relationships on the horizontal access.
Again here, we want to ensure a healthy balance of focus on both task and relationships (upper-right corner).
If we focus on tasks at the expense of relationships or relationships at the expense of tasks, we are going to have a problem. Moreover, it makes no sense to focus on items that are neither task- nor relationship-focused (lower-left).
We need to collaborate with others to accomplish great, complex tasks (we can only accomplish so much alone).
Again, dissonance (tension, stress, anxiety) is caused when we are pulled off-balance to focus on work or people to the exclusion of the other.
As they say,
“Mission first, people always!”
We’ve got to build meaningful relationships and work together to get the mission done and the mission can be helping people and building a better society in a variety of ways.
In a sense, it’s people helping people. Love thy neighbor to help thy neighbor.
Time is of the essence–we have so little of it–it is precious–we can’t get it back–it goes so fast–we need to manage it like gold. 😉
(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
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