Best Conference Freebie Ever!!

I've been to a lot of conferences over the years and am always surprised at the folks who will dive over a crowd of people while juggling a laptop backpack just to get the free ink pen. They don't even stop long enough to look interested, much less look at the actual product. I admit that I have a few of those vendor pens on my desk right now, but I must say that hands down, the best conference freebie is the Stress Ball.

However, not all stress balls are created equal. This baseball-looking one is very light and super easy to operate. It's my personal favorite! I have one in my office for obvious reasons and one that I take with me to other stressful events - like the dentist. A stress ball should not be too hard or have a unique shape that does not fit naturally in your hand - those just cause more stress because they are uncomfortable and much too difficult to use.

So next time you're roaming the vendor hall, I recommend that you skip the pens, and go for the stress balls.

Back to Work

Today went so much better than I expected. I was only gone three working days last week, but as I drove in this morning I was beating myself up for not checking my email more than once during my Thanksgiving vacation time. At the end of my first day back in the office, I still haven't gotten to the inbox of snail mail, but I was able to tackle all the urgent email messages and meeting prep that were at the top of the list.

A while back, when I had time to read a few leadership blogs, I came across some great posts about battling email and managing to stay on top of a hectic workload. I'm going to have to go back and re-read those to get through the rest of the holiday season without driving in to work all panicked about what I missed during the night. If you are also interested in sharpening your time management skills, you should take a look at how Michael Hyatt does it. You can find his productivity blog posts here: http://michaelhyatt.com/category/productivity.

 

 

Long time no see!

Wow! It's been a long time. I had to take a good, long break since I found myself working on the computer all day at work and then coming home to spend additional hours every evening on the computer. I just needed to de-clutter in a different manner for a while. But, I'm going to give it another shot and not put so much pressure on myself this time.

Anyhow, Thanksgiving is over and the house is clean once again. I only have a little Christmas shopping left and I know that Cyber Monday will help me get it finished. Over the past few months I have enjoyed a taste of local music and hope to capitalize on these opportunities a bit more.

But for today... it's nap time!!