Tag: life

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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 tip is to be kind to yourself; remember progress takes time.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to relax and understand how time impacts my life. While some things seem just a few days ago, I also appreciate all the wonderful memories across the years.

For me, I am stressed now by a lot of chores that need to get completed before winter. A busy spring got me behind, and while I’ve been working to catch up, I’m also trying to live the rest of my life and not get single minded-ly tracked on just chores.

One of my chores, which I’ve written about a few times, is cutting the pastures. 35 acres is a lot of stuff to manage, and I’ve been trying to get out 1-2 times a week and make some progress. It feels like things will never end, but just this week I hit a milestone.

I’d been going out and getting the land in front of and next to the house cut. This is about 15-18 acres of land, and it feels like cutting it cut will take forever. Even with a tractor and PTO mower, it’s slow. I’ve been getting more cut, and this past weekend I went out both days for multiple hours. With the temperatures dropping and wind blowing, not to mention lots of dust, it was a bit miserable.

However, I finally managed to get the front completely cut with the tractor. There are a few spots on the side of the house that I need to cut, but they’re small and the riding mower will work. Getting the majority done means I don’t need to try and get the tractor out from through multiple gates and coordinate with other employees.

It’s taken time, and I kept reminding myself. Now I can see that all that patience paid off.

Doesn’t look like much, but the 3ft weeds and grasses, not to mention yuccas are gone.

Now I need to work on the other 15 acres of pastures across the next few weeks.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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 tip is to find a new perspective on a problem you face.

There are always problems we are dealing with in life. Some at work, some in our families, some might be personal. It’s easy to get locked into a particular view of an issue and not think more widely about how to tackle things.

I actually have started to try and think differently about things, and part of the reason is this routine from Tom Segura (NSFW). The end is the best part, because he turns the entire story around. He looks at it from a new perspective. Rather than being insulted, he enjoys the routine.

I recently had an issue at work. It was a problem with the way I interacted with another team, and I was feeling frustrated. In this case, I had to walk away from the computer for a bit and try to calm down.

At some point I thought about this routine and decided to look at things a different way. This team wasn’t trying to be difficult, and they had their own issues related to my challenge. I decided to think about how I could approach the problem in a new way and try to get what I needed, as well as make things easier for this team.

I made some progress, and I had to accept the problem a bit for the part I couldn’t change. However, the entire experience was better for me when I took a new approach.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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 tip is to share a hopeful quote with a friend or colleague.

I’m not sending this to anyone in particular, but sharing more widely here. I love flipping through quotes and usually send them to others on their Facebook birthday. Today, I want to share one that caught my eye and is a variation of others that I believe in:

Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. – Nido Qubein

Things don’t always go our way, and sometimes the way forward from here feels overwhelming and tough. We can lament where we are, rather than looking forward and trying to figure out where we want to go.

I often see this in software. We can get caught up in how we got here, or the problems of today, rather than looking forward for future solutions.

Don’t be bound or defined by today. It’s one of the thousands of steps on a journey.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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 tip is to recognize that you have a choice about what to prioritize.

This seems like an obvious tip, but I see myself, and most others, often not prioritizing work. We tend to work on a FIFO method, first in first out, or within the squeeky-wheel methodology where the loudest voice wins.

I am guilty of this at times, though I certainly get caught up in working on the thing that is due soonest, letting deadlines drive my workflow.

At times I do find better ways to work, and occasionally I remember that I can set priorities. A couple weeks ago I was slammed, running from thing to thing (literally as I was in the Redgate office), and letting others dictate my schedule.

This week I aim to do better. I have things due today, some tomorrow, some Wednesday. Then things open up a bit from a deadline perspective. However, I know that there are some items I can do today, which will relieve some pressure. I’ll prioritize a recording today, then a review of something for tomorrow. Those should eat up half of today. From there, my plan is to focus on the question of the day for a few hours. I need to build up a queue, and I know that tight focus time here will likely get me a couple weeks of questions, which reduces lots of stress.

I’ll worry about Wednesday tomorrow or Wednesday.