Tag: advice

“You don’t need more time because you already have all the time that you will ever get; you need more focus.” – from Excellent Advice for Living

Boy, I wish I had more time. As I get older, I know time is shorted and more precious.

I’m not sure we don’t need more time. I certainly feel like I need more time to tackle all the things I enjoy. Apart from work and coaching and chores, I want to play guitar, take care of my health, cook, etc. I do find myself running out of time, and I have to focus on what’s more important. That might be tackling something on the ranch instead of playing guitar.

Or playing guitar instead of a chore because my mental health needs a break.

Often we do make hard choices, and that means focusing on what’s important and letting other things go. We definitely are limited to 525,600 minutes a year, and it’s up to us to decide how to divide those among days, weeks, months, and the various items that matter to us.

Remembering that time is important and limited is helpful for prioritizing. The other part of this is then making the decisions about what’s important and not just tackling what’s in front of you.

Focus is learning to pick the important things and spending time there.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

“A multitude of bad ideas is necessary for one good idea” – from Excellent Advice for Living

Whenever we read about the success of someone or something, we often get the impression that someone had a great idea and executed on it. Especially in computing, it can seem like it’s the trajectory of many of the companies we know well.

The reality is that a lot of companies have various bad ideas and then discover one working well. They pivot into the one good idea. Microsoft started writing programming languages and then pivoted to providing DOS. Netflix went from DVD rentals to streaming.

The reality is that often we have lots of ideas and it can be hard to decide what a good idea is. That’s why we brainstorm, why we game, debate, and discuss options. We don’t have any hindsight when we are trying to move in a new direction, so we need to come up with various ideas to find a great one. Artists do this, musicians do this, plenty of creative people do this.

I used to want to try and wait to have a great idea before discussing it with others. Andy Warren taught me to just throw things out there and then examine them with others.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

“The foundation of maturity: Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility.” – from Excellent Advice for Living

I’ve worked with a lot of people who are growing and learning into something new. This could be with my kids, kids I coach, or people at work. Often when we’re learning, or we attempt something in our jobs, we make mistakes. Sometimes those aren’t our fault, as some external factor might impact our effort.

However.

I’m still responsible for things. If someone doesn’t produce a good query and slows the system down, I still might be responsible if it’s the system I am managing. If a junior DBA doesn’t check somethings clients complaint to the lead DBA (me), I am likely still responsible.

I find people often conflate these things together. You might be both at fault and responsible, but in my mind, you should feel responsibility more often than you look at fault (or blame). If someone on my team messes up, it’s often not my fault, but I still feel responsibility. After all, we’re a team. That’s what a team does.

Don’t avoid responsibility. In fact, take on a bit more than others might want. Don’t be responsible for everything, but just a bit more than others would. It’s great advice that helps you stand out, and often, succeed.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

“Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.” – from Excellent Advice for Living

This is an interesting piece of advice. It’s easy to look at this and think, no, that’s not what I want, but remember that these two things are not mutually exclusive. People can respect and like you. However, for many things in life, you really want respect more than link.

When I coach, respect is more important. At work, respect is more important. In relationships, they’re probably equal.

Respect means that people listen to you, treat you well, give weight and consideration to your words, actions, and feelings.

I like some people, but don’t respect them. I might enjoy spending time with them, but our relationship is more for leisure and fun. We don’t really have anything of significance between us. We can just enjoy time.

Your goal is respect.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.