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.