What? Huh?

I hate to admit this. Really hate to admit it.

I have a focus problem.

Ok, those of you who know me well can stop laughing now.

I always have thought of myself (in the past) as a very focused person...if I had a goal, get out of the way. I would drive myself and everyone crazy in striving to be whatever it was at the moment I was striving to be.  And for the most part, I was pretty successful in doing so.

My apologies to anyone I ran over during this process.

I think when your world is falling around you, it is a good thing to focus on the things you can control.  Although you really can't control anything, really.  That I have learned.

It should tell you something about my life now is that one of my secretaries has her ring tone for me the dog from the movie, "Up."

You know....

I will try to defend my self just a bit in the fact that a couple of things are happening in my life that haven't happened before:

1. A LOT of stuff goes on in my job.
2. I AM getting (just a bit) older.

I know that I have mentioned that a lot of my job involves listening. To everyone. And that is a very good thing to do. However, I am not so good at the listening to all that goes on at the same time...and then remembering what in the heck I have said..or what someone has said to me.  

This leads to the following kind of conversations:

 Colinas Staff Member: "Laura, don't you remember that I asked you if I could blow up the biopark and plant eco-friendly plants that would swallow any naughty students"?

Me: Blank look on face. 

Colinas Staff Member: "Laura, don't you remember that I e-mailed you about taking off a month or so to go to Pango- Pango? You said that it would be just fine, and that you would give me all your sick leave."

Me: Blank look on face.

Now this has led (besides the blank look on my face) to taking copious notes about what and who I am talking to during the day. The only issue with this is that I look back at my copious notes and have no idea what I wrote.  And I have pretty good handwriting.

Desperate measures were called for here.  I know that I look befuzzled a great deal of the time, but REALLY being befuzzled isn't good. At all. 

So I decided to take a course on being more organized. Yes, I know. Me, the queen of color coding, sharpies, and the post it notes.  I could lose my membership in the "Happy Organizer"club.

I actually took a day off and went to a Franklin Covey course about Focus...and achieving my highest priorities.  Yes, that was the name of the course.  It was led by a very tall man named Cordell who had a voice like a movie trailer announcer. 

Cordell did have some very good points, however.

One thing that he talked about was a mathematical formula that took the hours during a day that you worked...and the percentage of hours that you could actually get priorities done..versus the hours in which you had interruptions, and calls, and things like that.  It seems as if the percentage of time you can get priorities done is less than the hours you work. For me, it's about 4 hours that I can actually get done what I should get done. 

The other thing that he talked about was the "Big Rocks" theory.  It seems as if there are things that are important in your life: Family, spiritual, physical health, education, etc. But these important things get pushed aside fot the "little pebbles" that crowd into your life. You know, running to the store, phone calls, internet surfing, etc. So he talked about how you actually schedule your week so that the "Big Rocks" of your life are scheduled first..and then the little pebbles around it. 

Now that made sense to me. I am always pushing aside the things (and sometimes the people) that are important to me. So now I have a weekly planning schedule in which I schedule "Big Rocks" priorities for the week....keeping in mind the percentage of time I have to really focus in on it for the day.  And I can do it through my Outlook calendar, in which I can happily color code my "Big Rock" categories.  So I can actually plan my gym time, my family time, my friend time, and realistic goals at work that I can get done.

Oops...will get done. With color coding, of course.