Tag: Career

Work Emergency?

I realized something this weekend during our trip to Denver. I work way more than I have to right now. In the past I have put in anywhere from 50 to 70 hour weeks for my day job and then come home only to start working on my night job.

I realized something this weekend during our trip to Denver. I work way more than I have to right now. In the past I have put in anywhere from 50 to 70 hour weeks for my day job and then come home only to start working on my night job. Since Isabel’s birth I have tried to cut back on both of those considerably but not near enough.

I have always been a very hard working person. I would bust my butt to get something done and sometimes, more often than not, that would mean I would bring my work home with me. My dad was a hard worker and I am sure I get it from him. I have always wondered if he ever regrets not being around more when we were little. Don’t get me wrong, he was there for every little league game and would drop everything to help with a question or just just play a game of poker before bed. He just spent a lot of time traveling and for some reason I just don’t remember him being around a lot on a normal day.

My lack of attention at home was especially bad when I had my office setup at home. I would work through lunch because I could and then not end up not shutting down until well after the work day was actually over. I decided a few weeks ago to stop using my home office and start working from our real office again. I also started setting an alarm telling me when it is time to start finding a stoping point for lunch time and then another alarm to start closing down for the day. It has been amazing how I haven’t lost any of my normal productivity and yet have been able to start spending more time with my wife and the girls. It feels like I have just cut out a lot of the nonsense and now I have freed up the time to get everything done.

I haven’t been able to completely remove myself from bringing work home but instead of jumping immediately at every issue I wait just a few minutes to see if it is really an emergency and then handle it accordingly. Most of the time it can wait until I am back at the office in the morning. I guess the moral of this post would have to be; by changing my definition of an emergency, I have been able to not take work home as often and spend more time with my wife and kids. Still not as much as I would like but I am getting closer!

Smile, It’s Monday!

I don’t understand why people say that they hate Monday’s so much. Looking at Facebook this morning I notice that there are two or three of my friends that post every Monday that they hate Monday’s. It is kind of silly to me.

I don’t understand why some people hate Monday’s so much. Looking at Facebook this morning I notice that there are two or three of my friends that post every Monday that they hate Monday’s. It is kind of silly to me. You would think these 20 or 30 somethings would have figured out that no matter what they do Monday is coming and they should prepare themselves for it. Today I am going to list out a few things I do so that I don’t hate Monday’s. Maybe you can use them to help out your Monday’s.

Don’t Quit Early on Friday

If you have stuff to do on Friday get it done. Don’t leave early because it is a Friday and leave a bunch of work that will have to get done first thing when you walk into the office on Monday. If you have a stack of paper work waiting on you Monday morning, how can you possibly have a good attitude about heading into the office.

Plan Your Monday in Advance

I set aside 20 minutes before I head home every friday to list out my To Do’s for the following Monday. This gives me the opportunity to see if I need to send out any last minute emails and have an organized starting point when I walk into the office Monday.

No Monday Morning Meetings

I try to never schedule meetings or phone calls on Monday mornings. This gives me the opportunity to put out any fires that might have happened over the weekend without having to worry about making it to that 8:30 conference call.

Be Early

One of the guys that used to work in the office with me when we were living in Tulsa used to always come in 45 minutes late each Monday. He would always blame it on the weekend and it being a Monday. He would spend the next hour apologizing for being late and rushing around trying finish up everything that should have been finished up on Friday.

Be a Nice Person

Say good morning to the people you meet. I suggest doing everyday but if you don’t start on a Monday. When you see somebody smile and say good morning. Smiling is contagious and puts everybody in a better mood. Plus being a nice person is just the right thing to do. You never know what the other person is going through and you might have just made their day by saying hi. I know I have had some days where another person smiling at me and saying good morning helped me have a better day.

My Jobs…

First of all I have to give photo credit to my wife and daughter! Pretty fitting for today.

I have 2 jobs right now. My day job is as a software developer at a software company that makes point of sale software. I also run my own web consulting business called Kindred Web Consulting. I love both my jobs because they both allow me to show people what technology can do to help them.

My Day Job

My day job has its ups and downs. I have always loved the fact that I have a ton of freedom and that we have been able to put together a fix for a customer in a matter of a few hours. One of the joys of working for a small company is that there is not near the amount of hoops to jump through when something needs to be fixed.

My Night Job

I love running my own business. I am able to make some of the decisions that I have suggested in my day job and not been able to do. My real passion is helping people use the Internet to better there lives and business and this is exactly what I do. I design and develop websites, audit social media and help educate my customers on how to create a consistent brand experience across all the different platforms they may be using. I am also going to start offering online classes that will teach people how to do different things with technology. These are going to range from how to schedule a post in Facebook to setting up your email on your mobile device. If you would be interested in something like that let me know about it. Fill out this form and let me know about the topic you would be interested in learning about.

I have been lucky to have a few friends and family give me the opportunity to have them be some of my first customers. It has been great how things have started to grow and I love that I am starting to get referral customers. Thank you to everybody that has suggested my services to people and if you know of anybody looking for a website feel free to give them my info.