I'm back!

Goodness!  Has it really been three months since I posted on my blog?  It HAS!  Sorry about that.  I really didn’t have the bandwidth to update my blog since I’ve been so busy with work.  When I was done with work each day, I was pretty much DONE with everything.  I didn’t even want to look at a computer, much less post an entry here.  My poor children got the bare minimum attention, because my brain would literally shut down.  Not good.  My poor husband did his best to weather the storm.  I really do love that man.  He’s far from perfect, but the stuff he puts up with… O.M.G. 

That being said, I still love my job.  It has its harrowing moments, but it’s a pretty sweet gig.  We get bagels every morning.  I have awesome benefits; aside from the normal medical, dental, eye stuff, I also get regular training on the company’s dime.  I get to work from home on snowy days… or when I’m sick (shouldn’t be doing that.  I should cut out that crap)… or if I have the cable guy coming over.  I work with brilliant people, and I get to work on way cool stuff to educate present and future generations of students.  Can you say OpenClass?  Have a look.  It’s pretty dang cool.   So even though I’ve had some pretty demanding projects lately, I’m not cutting out my job.  It just isn’t crappy.  Or cut-worthy. 

So how have I cut the crap over the past 3+ months?  Not as much as I’d like.  The Paleo Diet has waxed and waned; Rob is finally on board, though, as he’s reading 4 Hour Body.  We’re going for a BMI test next week.  My quest to weed out my email inbox is still ongoing, but my company gave me an ADDITIONAL, corporate-wide account that had 5000+ emails already waiting for me in it.  I deleted those.  I’ve been weeding out friends and causes and likes on Facebook.  My kids have a box of toys to be donated (or sold at a yard sale), so that’s pretty good.  Recycling efforts were reinforced at Christmas.  I made reusable sandwich wraps for all the nieces and nephews to use in their daily school lunches.  I also tried to wrap as many presents in either recycled paper or reusable bags.  That was cool. 

So, I have been keeping with the spirit of cutting the crap.  I just haven’t been blogging about it or stepping it up as much as I wanted for 2012… at least not so far.  I want to get my reader counts up this year.  I want to write more.  Quite frankly, it’s like therapy to me.  I need it.  And I want to find more ways to cut out the crap from my life.  There is plenty of it!  Help me stay accountable, People! 

Cutting the Crap at Work

In an effort to be more efficient around here, upper management has decided that we need to cut out as many afternoon meetings as possible.  This, they say, will allow project teams to work uninterrupted through the afternoon, and hopefully they will be more productive.  I say HUZZAH to this new cutting-of-the-meetings edict.  After all, Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings… They did it by killing all those who opposed them.  Just sayin’…

So that made me contemplate how I can cut the crap at work.  I probably shouldn’t be looking at Facebook or writing for my blog… Those two are givens.  But I think I can actually make a difference by really sharpening my meeting agendas and making sure only the necessary people attend.   I also think I can be more efficient in my email writing strategies.  I need to make them information dense.  I can do that.  I think.  I’m sure there are a TON of other ways to make things better.  I’m going to look into that more. 

Last year I started reading a book entitled Managing Workplace Chaos by Patricia Hutchings.  It’s a pretty good book that advocated the idea of speed reading to get the info we need.  I think I need to pick up this book again and re-read it.  Do any of you have good reading suggestions?  Or ideas?  Tricks? Tips?  Anything on cutting the crap at work to become more productive?  Talk to me!