The best way to make the most of the week is to set your goals.  One of the things I try to do every week is to identify three goals for each week.  What three things do I want to accomplish that will move my workload further down the road.  These don’t have to be extravagant or complex goals.  They can be as simple as planning to spend a few minutes reading blogs every day or writing out a review of current index use.  The key is to have a line in the sand to progress to that can help move your overall agenda forward.

When it comes to goals, I set three goals for my work week and three for my personal life every day.  This week, reviewing indexes is actually on the list.  This is always an iterative process and its time to make sure it’s been done.  One of my personal goals is ensuring I spend time every day this week working on my 5K speed plan.

These goals don’t need to be ground breaking, maybe they are small things that you’ve done for months, but missed in the past couple weeks and it’s time to put some mental effort into, such as an indexing review.  Or it could be a piece of a larger, stretch goal like the running goal, I’m working my way towards a less than 30 minute 5K.  The key is to set the goal, keep it in mind, and let it help to start changing everything for you.

“This one step – choosing a goal and sticking to it – changes everything.” ~ Scott Reed
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Enjoy your week and check out the link roundup below – there are popular shared links for both technology and off-topic subjects.  If you haven’t already, follow me on twitter (@StrateSQL). This is a good chance to keep up on data platform technology and career related information I share throughout the week that doesn’t get included in this weekly post.

Most Popular Article Shared

Last weeks most popular link is a post by Denny Cherry (Blog | @MrDenny) where he shared a highly inappropriate comment left at a recent SQL Saturday.  This kind of behavior needs to stop.  Speaker feedback forms are not the place for recommending sexy attire for speakers.  I’m amazed that telling people this is not right is even required.

Last Week’s Popular Posts

The most popular posts on this blog in the week are:

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction (649)
2. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) (285)
3. 31 Days of SSIS as a Book (253)
4. Get Just The Tools: SSMS Download (178)
5. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value (135)
6. Security Questions: What permissions are required to create temporary tables? (113)
7. Security Questions: Removing Logins From Databases (111)
8. Looking to SQL Server 2014 High Availability In Standard Edition (109)
9. Security Questions: Difference Between db_datawriter and db_ddladmin? (105)
10. 31 Days of SSIS – Using Breakpoints (2/31) (92)

Last Week’s Top 20 “Reading” Links

Along with the most popular link, here are the top twenty items relating to SQL Server, technology and careers that were shared last week. If you missed them throughout the week, here’s the opportunity to get caught up on some items that other’s read after I linked them out.

1. Move on Brogrammers, your comments aren’t welcome anywhere. [87 clicks]
2. Using R in SQL Server 2016 [24 clicks]
3. SQL Server Index Formulas – Problems and Solutions [20 clicks]
4. Tips, Tricks, and Advice from the SQL Server Query Optimization Team [20 clicks]
5. 10 Bad Habits That Will Rob You of Productivity [19 clicks]
6. How can you tell how many NUMA nodes your SQL Server has? [19 clicks]
7. Dear SQL DBA – Bleeding In Edgeville [15 clicks]
8. Re-Evaluating Best Practices [13 clicks]
9. Learning Azure Data Platform [13 clicks]
10. Get a head start on SQL Server 2016 with this how-to guide [13 clicks]
11. Setting Up Predictive Analytics Pipelines Using Azure SQL Data Warehouse [11 clicks]
12. Power BI Custom Visuals Class (Module 01 – Custom Visuals Introduction) [11 clicks]
13. Use The Correct Data Type [11 clicks]
14. Encapsulate JSON parsing with inline table value functions [10 clicks]
15. Indexes: Do Included Columns Always Go on a Non-Root Page? (video) [10 clicks]
16. Testing an Insert for Race Conditions with Ostress.exe [10 clicks]
17. It’s 2016 RLS for T-SQL Tuesday #79 [10 clicks]
18. Elastic Query in Azure SQL Database and Views [9 clicks]
19. SQL 2016 – It Just Runs Faster: Automatic TEMPDB Configuration [9 clicks]
20. Links and Notes from “SQL Server Index Formulas”, Huntington Beach [9 clicks]

Last Week’s Posts From Previous Years

Sometimes the most useful content on a blog wasn’t written in the past week, it’s often other articles shared in the past that resonate with readers. Check out the following links that I published in past years over the past week:

1. Is That Your Code? [Copyright Considerations] (2012-06-22)
2. Do You Patch SQL Server Regularily? (2010-06-23)
3. Database Mail Failed Items Log (2008-06-26)
4. Why’d That Job Fail? (2010-06-26)

Other Items Shared

Of course, no week would be complete without a few off-topic links. These have nothing to do with technology or your career, but they are interesting and worth a second look.

1. Microsoft shows how bad Chrome is for your laptop’s battery [43 clicks]
2. Are We in a Mattress-Store Bubble? [39 clicks]
3. Seeing my husband’s 401(k) balance was a huge wake-up call about the way I save money [31 clicks]
4. Here are 24 of history’s weirdest jobs [23 clicks]
5. The 10 best books of the year so far, according to Amazon [18 clicks]
6. 10 Abandoned Space Shuttles, Orbiter Test Vehicles & Engineering Mockups [15 clicks]
7. Smokey Cover Of ‘Black Hole Sun’ Is A Whole Lot Of Class [15 clicks]
8. Rain Bomb Caught On Camera [14 clicks]
9. Brazil Just Shot and Killed Its Own Olympic Mascot [14 clicks]
10. Why Unfriending People on Facebook Is Immature and Counterproductive [13 clicks]
11. Dance to Trance with no Pants [10 clicks]
12. Artificial Intelligence Discovers How To Improve Sales Performance [9 clicks]
13. 3 Things You Need to Stop Doing to Get Started with What You Truly Want to Do [9 clicks]
14. Space Shuttle Orbiters Full Size [8 clicks]
15. The Longest Long Shot [7 clicks]
16. Date Night: 25 Kickass, Nerdy, and Fit Date [5 clicks]
17. Space Station View of the Full Moon [5 clicks]
18. Puking Kitty Saucy Boat [5 clicks]

Upcoming PASS Cloud Virtual Chapter Meetings

As co-leader of the PASS Cloud Virtual Chapter, and an advocate of cloud technologies, check out these upcoming presentations:

• Powering your application reports with Azure Power BI Embedded with Thurupathan Vijayakumar – Jun 28, 7 PM CDT
• Successfully Migrating Existing Databases to Azure SQL Database with John Sterrett – Jul 7, 7 PM CDT
• Azure SQL Database for the Production DBA with Tim Radney – Jul 13, 7 PM CDT
• Introduction to Azure Data Catalog with Dave DuVarney – Jul 21, 7 PM CDT
• Azure Active Directory – Hybrid Architecture Identity Management and Much More with Jared Zagelbaum – July 28, 7 PM CST
• Consuming SaaS Solutions with Azure Data Factory with Dave DuVarney – Sep 14, 7 PM CDT

Got something you think I should read and share, leave a comment below. Also, if you want to see all of the links that were tweeted out last week?