Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.”

-Josh Billings

This Gun’s Quote will be short, sweet and to the point.

For those who know me closely, they know that it seems like I take months on end to get things done. My boss is figuring this out, too. Not cool.

What is the reason? Why does it take me hours when it takes other minutes? Months instead of days? Why, really, am I still working on taxes three months after starting them?

The answer is one I already know well. The reason why is because I get distracted and don’t say “No” to the things that interrupt me when I should be working on something else. Tonight, I should have said “No” to Gun’s Quotes and instead be inside of Quicken churning numbers. Let’s be honest here. I’ll get a couple thousand dollars for turning in taxes and I am running out of time. Why don’t I just get them done?

But I’ll let dinner with friends, a ballet, laundry, a Boys State Staff Meeting, planning my air conditioning project, work, praying, cleaning my house, Easter plans, Facebook, writing Gun’s Quotes, the gym, Starcraft, March Madness and my aquarium all get in the way first. Are all of the above bad things? Hardly. But do some of the above need to get put off so that I can focus on what I need to do right in this moment? Yep.

I have old, bad habits I need to break and the worst one is trying to do 12 things at once. It should be two or maybe three at the most. So, now that I have admitted that I cannot manage my life and the reason why, I would advise evaluating what you need to prioritize and just do it. Getting distracted by everything else just prolongs the inevitable and you’ll get nothing done.

Like me.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Someday

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“What is our humiliation at the moment is our glory later on, even in this lifetime.”

-St. Therese of the Little Flower, submitted by Mike Lally

What was supposed to be a week of productivity and pseudo-hilarious Gun’s Quotes turned out to be less than anticipated, less than planned and certainly less than funny.

It had nothing to do with the quotes themselves. I had every intention of publishing the remaining ones and will still do so at some point. Obviously, it won’t be tonight.

The reason the quotes were “delayed” is because, frankly, I came home in less than a happy mood all week long. I didn’t feel like joking around or trying to be funny.

Last week, I had three schools that I was working on that were due on Tuesday. Due to many complications, most of which had to do with me not properly planning my time and organizing what needed to get done, that didn’t happen. They eventually went out on Wednesday night. This pushed what I was supposed to do on Wednesday out until Thursday, which is when I happened to have another project due. That project got so time crunched I had to rush through it. Let me tell you a little story… if I rush through something, it’s all kinds of FUBAR by the time I’m done. I don’t work fast. I never have. I never will.

Well, I butchered the submission on Thursday. It was due at the end of the day. It went out, then I got notified this weekend that what we sent out had problems and I had to fix them this afternoon.

Friday had a project going out the door, too. Mind you, this may all sound like a bunch of stuff due in one week, and it is, but it was also relatively small tasks. Anyways, Friday’s submission got botched because drawings got misplaced on the project. This client didn’t get his stuff which was due on Friday. Hopefully, he will get them tomorrow. That’s provided we can get the drawings from the sub-consultant who did them. You know, the one who should have been called at the beginning of the week but got called at 3:30 on Friday instead.

It was just a disaster of a week. I’m supposed to be a project manager and I couldn’t manage a project if my life depended on it. I’m embarrassed, tired and very, very mad. A week that should have cleaned house and been relatively fun turned into a nightmare. It just made me sick.

I’m tired of writing these Gun’s Quotes. I’m tired of lamenting about how things keep going wrong and how things that were supposed to end up one way ended up nose-diving at the end. I’m tired of other people picking up my slack. I’m tired of feeling stupid. I’m tired of feeling humiliated. I’m tired of feeling like the office idiot. I’m just tired.

It’s at the end of these posts that I resolve to just keep on keeping on and staying the course and any other cliché saying that we all use to mean the same thing: Try again. Well… that’s all I know, trying again. My bull-headed stubbornness has gotten me this far in the world, so it will get me through this next part, right? In keeping with the things cliché, I’ll also say that someday I’ll look back on this and just laugh. Someday.

So, that’s what I’ll do and that’s what I’ll say. There will be glory that stems from this humiliation. Things will change as all of this failure and humiliation is part of growing and getting better. The story doesn’t end here. “Someday!” I will say.

“Someday!”

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!