Catching Up
I have had a slightly more busy week this week since we have had house guests for a few days and the finishing of the deck project has caused me more work than normal in terms of getting things arranged as we like them. This is work that cannot be delegated as it has to do with how we like to live our lives in our space. As such, I have been busier and I am down to one more blog story in my queue. That means the monkey is on my back to write at least one story per day to keep ahead of the beast. It is a beast I take quite seriously and I do not like falling prey to it. So I write, even though it is driven by “necessity” rather than pure inspiration. Sometimes my best work is done under the pressure of necessity, so that is not always such a bad thing.
All of my remaining cylinders are firing this week for some reason. I have a conference call with my Associate Dean at University of San Diego about a guest lecture I am giving on Sunday. That lecture is about something I lectured on last year and it involves ethics of business (specifically accounting abuse) regarding a specific period in our financial history in the early part of the Millennium. I take that seriously for two reasons, the first is that I respect the Dean and want to do a good job for her class and the second and even more compelling reason is that teaching ethics is becoming one of my arenas since I am scheduled to teach a course on that subject in the Spring of next year.
I have also reached out to the Chairman of my former employer, for whom I have agreed to act as the Chairman of the Advisory Board and I have suggested a protocol and a slate of advisors so that the position is a substantive one rather than a purely titular one. Naturally, nothing ever moves as fast as I want, when I want it to, but that is moving down the path as well.
And perhaps the things that I most want to make progress on are the two books I have ghost written. I described the fact that one is too long and the other is too short at the moment. I feel that finishing off the one that is a bit too short is the first task. Then, while that is being mulled over by my founding author (that is my new term for the person who commissioned and conceived of the work, but doesn’t really have the patience or ability to write it), I can turn my attention to the task of minimizing the other manuscript. That one will require a newly written compelling first chapter about a specific career incident that I have suggested and the founding author has agreed has strong and compelling attraction with which to draw readers into the book. It will then require the reworking and distillation of fifty pages or so and finally the tedious task of cutting, cutting and cutting bits, pieces and whole sections to reduce the word count by some 35%.
This all looks to me to be a substantial sum of work that I need to progress over the next week or so. We are heading off to Mendocino and our revisited Missions Mission in about ten days and I would like to place as many balls in other people’s courts as I can before that trip. The nature of work these days is that it can be done anywhere, but its hard to write while you drive and I don’t relish having writing monkeys on my back while I drive. That is the stuff of stress that I don’t need in my life and that, with a little bit of advance planning, should be easily avoidable if I am disciplined in my work.
I find that morning time is my most productive time. My mind is fresh and I find that writing occurs quite naturally at this time. The day is new, the air is fresh and clear from the overnight and my mind is reasonably agile. I’ve even solved my most troublesome problem of the sun coming into my office window and blinding my right eye. I could buy a shade for the window except that if I am writing in the late afternoon the sun comes in from my window on the left and blinds my left eye. I needed a unique solution and I am glad to report that I think I have found one for $19.95. I found on Amazon a small irregularly shaped reflective umbrella that is on a fully articulated stem that has a clamp that allows you to attach it where it is most needed. Right now, it is shielding me to the East quite effectively without otherwise obstructing my views. Thank you Amazon for yet again daily and quickly solving one of my minor life problems.
As I sit at my desk in the morning I also find it helpful to keep ahead of my paperwork obligations. I don’t get too many bills or important documents that aren’t digital or that need special handling, but I do still get a few. For instance, the U.S. Treasury has somehow lost my direct deposit information in the course of my move to California and they have switched me to a manual check process. I am owed a refund and they have taken forever to process it even though it was filed electronically. After taking their sweet time going over the return, pondering my move from New York to California (something that makes no sense from a tax standpoint and is therefore probably suspicious to them), they have finally written to me and told me that I got my refund filing wrong and they actually owe me more than I had requested (technically more than my tax preparer had requested). They have also told me that they will send that as a check rather than do a direct deposit since they don’t seem to have that information any more for some reason. They sent me one check yesterday and the good news is that I am able to deposit it to my account digitally with a photo-deposit capability that makes trips to the bank obsolete. I am always a bit shy to destroy or throw away the deposited check until I have spent the money, but that is a fairly simple thing to wait out even though it is a rather anachronistic and silly habit of mine. There are still a few pieces of paper which I file away like a miscellaneous receipt or an insurance policy (not sure I have ever referenced one, but I keep them nonetheless). In fact, I have less need for files and even a formal desk than ever and expect that is a open-way street at this point in our digitized lives. If I can’t get it on my iPad, I’m not sure its all that important. Thank God digital storage prices have come down to almost nothing and the Cloud has proven fairly reliable at saving everything we all need.
That gives me an idea for another story that I will need to explore at another time. I just deleted an email promotion from my tailor of thirty years. I have so many unused suits and dress shirts that I almost feel like I should unsubscribe to his emails. I won’t because I don’t want to offend the guy who served me well for many years, but the truth is that I have less and less need for tailored clothing. If I can’t buy it at Duluth Trading or UnderArmour, I’m not so sure I need it. I have less and less need to buy clothing both because I have so much and I wear mostly the same things washed and rewashed.
Now that I have cleared my desk and whatever clutter has occupied my thoughts the last few days, I am ready to go face my day and spend the needed time to advance my various balls downfield. Catching up with oneself is a good thing to do regularly, so thank you for helping me do that this morning.