Category: Blog

Today’s coping tip is to do something constructive to improve a difficult situation.

My life is amazing, but there are certainly some difficult times. Sometimes at work, sometimes at home, but I have been trying to not focus on the situation and instead look to the future and move forward.

My wife runs a horse training and boarding business and has a few people working for her. That’s good, because it means that I don’t have to do much with horses on a regular basis other than take pictures and enjoy ranch life.

Recently she had an employee quit, which is a burden on a weekly basis. If there isn’t anyone else to feed horses then she has to do it. That takes time and impacts her lesson and training schedule. If she’s too busy, then one of the kids often helps out. I’m, in general, the emergency person.

However, my kids are working their own jobs, and my wife has stress, so I’ve offered a few days lately to pick up a few hours of work. I can adjust my schedule and work at night, so I’ve been taking some time this week to feed horses during midday and handle chores.

I hope I don’t need to do this for too many more days, but I am happy to help her during a difficult time.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s coping tip is to avoid blaming yourself or others. Find a helpful way forward.

I’ve been busy lately. My days are jammed up with a number of presentations I’m working on for the Data Community Summit. In addition, I still have plenty of “normal” work running SQL Server Central and SQL Saturday. Then, I’m trying to manage this around travel. September had me away from home for about 21 days. October is scheduled to be 11.

It would be easy to blame someone else for pushing some of these commitments onto me or adding things to my schedule. It’s easy to be mad at myself for scheduling in extra trips or time during trips as a vacation when I’m busy.

Better to note the things that haven’t worked well or cause too much stress and try to better manage the future. For now, I need to move forward, so I’m trying to focus on individual tasks and march forward.

I’m also asking for help. I am asking others to send me reminders or meetings when they have asked me to commit to something. I’m asking for them to also tackle small parts of things where they can, especially around organizing and coordinating when I’m just a part of their particular milestone.

While I can and do manage my schedule, I agree to, and get told to, do various things. I’m also sometimes doing this on the road, so having others help me prevent problems is helpful.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s coping tip is to take time to reflect on what you have accomplished recently.

What have I done recently? Lots of stuff, but a couple things come out in my mind.

First, SQL Saturday is moving forward. I was at SQL Saturday Boston 2022 recently and I’m heading to SQL Saturday Toronto 2022 this weekend. I didn’t put on these events, but I have been helping the organizers in the background with encouragement, support, and some fundraising. I’m proud of what I’ve done to help and I’m thrilled with the efforts of the various organizers.

Second, I pushed and got the volleyball club where I work to set up some open gyms. I run these each week and I wanted to get them set up as I have a few kids on my team that aren’t participating in high school volleyball, so I wanted to give them a place to play.

I wasn’t sure how this would go, and if I’d have more than a couple of kids show up. I  was prepared to end up teaching a private lesson for a few kids. Instead, 18 kids showed up and I lightly organized them into 4 teams to play. A bunch of them were happy, and asked if we could do it twice a week. Not sure I can do that, but I’m glad that things worked out.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.