I’m a big GTD fan and right now I’m struggling. So I’m writing this post to gain some perspective and let the struggle drain off of me.
So, where am I? Let’s start with life is great,
On the macro scale, I leverage my 25 years of corporate experience and get paid by adding common sense to our fortune 500 business culture.
On the micro scale, I get to leverage my 30 years of coaching experience and get paid to help people recapture their passion for life while building their own small business.
I get paid very well at both activities. At least I do when I’m working. I get paid nothing when I’m not working. Sometimes this looks very feast-or-famine-ish which can lead to short bursts of panic if I’m not careful about it. I have found the Quadrants of Control to be a useful tool for getting back on top of my situation.
I’m writing this post because I feel like I’m flailing. So I’m pulling out the Quadrants of Control as a diagnostic tool.
As a human being, we are all bouncing around the Quadrants of Control. (Maybe sometime I’ll come back and re-edit this post with a link to David’s book and his affiliate program, then I’ll need to add my federally mandated disclaimer that I’ll make money if you spend money with the people I’m talking about. Right now, I’m just going to use it.)
My vision is muddled. I have three conflicting priorities. Maybe five conflicting priorities. Maybe twenty five conflicting priorities. By definition, as I write this, I am low on the vision scale.
Last week I spent as a single dad, trying to keep everything together while my wife was out of town at a business convention. The house is also a bit of a mess. Looking at the control axis of the graph, I would have to say that I’m low on the control scale.
Today, my wife is home, and both kids are in school or day care.
What I need to get accomplished today is
- Get the dishes done, the garbage taken out, the floor picked up
- Get a business address for our new corporation
- Get the paper work from the Secretary of State, fill it out, have our attorneys take a look at it.
- Send in the paperwork.
- Get a tax id
- Find an independent insurance agent to cover the general liability insurance.
None of this puts cash in our pockets today and I’m concerned about that, however getting this done will put us far ahead of where we are today.
For yourself, if you find yourself in the victim (rapid responder) quadrant, what you can do to take yourself out of flail mode is what i just did.
- Clarify your vision (Identify your priorities) Mine are not as clear as I would like, but just swimming in them for the moment or 6 that it took to write about it, clarified my top two or three enough to
- Improve your control. What I have done is identified 6 steps that will move my day forward enough that I can then redo this exercise and get through to the next mile mark.
I hope that this has helped you, it has certainly helped me, so thank you for being a willing audience as I worked through it.
If this post has helped you, please take a second to explain how and why it helped you. Writing it down will help you clarify your own vision and improve your own control.
If you have any questions about what I’m talking about, please take a second to ask your question. Someone else has your exact question and you will be helping them by actually asking it.
Thanks for sharing this time
Related posts:
- Rebooting the site
- Welcome to NonTraditional Success
- From The Trenches – Post 002
- From The Trenches – 004 – I Am Frustrated
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