Ever have one of those days? It's National You're Going To Fail At Life Day, and you were not forewarned. You woke up late, didn't eat breakfast, dressed for the wrong weather, and as soon as you get to work, it gets worse.
I had a similar day this week. The copy machine, stapler, printer, desktop computer, DVD burner, etc. did not like me. Lunch took a half hour longer than I had time for. Then, I got sent on a 4 stop run. How can I screw that up? Don't worry, I'll find a way. It is, after all, National Amanda Fails at Life Day.
I had to go outside of town to pick up a hard drive. I waited about 20-25 minutes for the guy to finish up when I got to the studio. I took the hard drives across town (in some nasty traffic), took those discs back downtown to CMT, almost got a parking ticket, moved my car to where I could park for free (because why would I have change the one day I need to pay for a meter?), walked 3 or 4 blocks to the post office, and saw that two hours after I had left to go on this run, I still wasn't done, had 3 missed calls from my supervisors asking where I was, and ended up an hour late for my second job after driving back to my internship and across town again in rush hour traffic.
Needless to say, they weren't happy that I took so long. Nothing that day was my fault, it just happened to fall on me. After about 5 and a half hours at Bar Louie (which was insanely busy because of the NBA game), it slowed down enough for me to actually think about what all had happened that day.
My day started off terribly at 8:30am, and it took me until about 10pm to actually get mad about what a failure the day was. I've always been a person who dwells on my mistakes. I still remember getting detention in 6th grade for passing a note with Amanda Do about how we hate Language Arts.
I can, however, be proud of how I handled those mistakes. You can only give your best, and if the universe sees fit to screw you up, it will, regardless of your attitude. So why not just smile through the day anyway?
Nothing stresses me out more than other stressed out people, so why spread that around?
Basically, after trying so hard to do everything right, my motto for the day became, "Bucket. I am doing the best I can." Well, not 'bucket.' It rhymes with bucket though...
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Time Management: 4 Rules to Go By
I'm not saying I'm great at time management or that I follow this all the time, but here's what I've found to be important:
1. You can never do anything perfectly.
No matter how hard you try, someone will always be able to do the work better. Don't waste too much time trying to make it perfect. Settle for excellent.
2. Prioritize: What is the most important for your future?
When you're juggling so many tasks and projects, you have to figure out what is most beneficial for you to do well. Work on those first, and then move on to the less important things. Right now, I'm on internship, working part-time, and I'm in an online class. First comes my internship. That is the most beneficial thing to my future. Next comes my part-time job because, well, I like eating as opposed to starving. Last comes my online class. All I need to do is pass that thing. My GPA is high enough to take a hit from one class.
3. Set goals for yourself.
If you write down your goals, you are statistically more likely to actually achieve them. If I had written down that I wanted to get an A in my summer class, perhaps I would've been trying harder. Writing it down serves as a constant reminder as opposed to just a mental note.
4. Always do quality work.
There's no point in doing anything if it isn't quality. Don't ever rush through something to get through everything. Work with your priorities. That's why you have them. I wouldn't rush through a project at my internship to get to my part-time job on time. They understand that I'm here to intern, not to work for them.
1. You can never do anything perfectly.
No matter how hard you try, someone will always be able to do the work better. Don't waste too much time trying to make it perfect. Settle for excellent.
2. Prioritize: What is the most important for your future?
When you're juggling so many tasks and projects, you have to figure out what is most beneficial for you to do well. Work on those first, and then move on to the less important things. Right now, I'm on internship, working part-time, and I'm in an online class. First comes my internship. That is the most beneficial thing to my future. Next comes my part-time job because, well, I like eating as opposed to starving. Last comes my online class. All I need to do is pass that thing. My GPA is high enough to take a hit from one class.
3. Set goals for yourself.
If you write down your goals, you are statistically more likely to actually achieve them. If I had written down that I wanted to get an A in my summer class, perhaps I would've been trying harder. Writing it down serves as a constant reminder as opposed to just a mental note.
4. Always do quality work.
There's no point in doing anything if it isn't quality. Don't ever rush through something to get through everything. Work with your priorities. That's why you have them. I wouldn't rush through a project at my internship to get to my part-time job on time. They understand that I'm here to intern, not to work for them.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Ambition vs. Motivation
I just saw this on Tumblr, and I thought that it didn't really ring true for me. I always seem to have motivation to make something happen for myself. I think these two things go hand in hand. You can't have motivation if you don't have ambition. You can't have ambition without motivation either.
If you truly have ambition without motivation, I don't think your ambition is aimed correctly. Maybe it would be better placed somewhere else.
I thought I wanted to play music for a short period of time. It turns out, I never had the motivation to practice. I just want to be able to magically play my favorite songs. So, I changed my ambition. Music Business. Now I have motivation.
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