Tag: coping

Today’s coping tip is to share a helpful quote, picture, or video with a friend.

I usually enjoy sharing quotes with friends on their birthdays. Those of you who know me on Facebook usually get one.

However, I’m sharing one today that I think is helpful to me, both in my career in technology, in coaching, and in my endeavors:

“What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.” – Dean Smith

It’s a very DevOps way to view the world, and I like this one.

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 find joy in tackling something that you have put off.

I on not a bad procrastinator, but I do put plenty of things off. Usually this is because I try to always have work done for the next week, which means I am looking forward two or three weeks all the time.

That usually gives me a bit of time to procrastinate if I don’t feel like working on a task.

This is often the way I tackle ranch tasks, as we often can look forward and plan out fixing or improving something. Recently, I took time to handle a few things that I’ve been delaying.

First, I changed oil in the UTVs on the ranch. We use these things regularly, and I tend to handle the maintenance. However, I don’t love changing oil. It’s easy and not that time consuming, but it’s dirty and annoying, and I avoid it. I took time to just deal with a couple vehicles this past weekend.

The second thing is that I put an electric winch on a door during the pandemic. It’s worked OK, but it hasn’t been completely stable. It twists a little under high wind loads, and I end up going out to tight and re-align it at times. I had purchased a couple brackets, but needed a few new bolts and then time to mount those under the winch. I took time to just knock this out as well.

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 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.