There is No Fool Like A Busy Fool

I am on one of those self evaluation day's today. One of those days when you have to stand back and take a critical look at yourself. The only description I can conjure up to express how I feel about myself today is 'There is no fool like a Busy Fool'.

I am a bit disappointed to say that this is not a new problem for me, being a 'busy fool' is something I have dragged with me throughout my life. Always doing but never achieving the results I want.

I am the worst kind of person to ever be in a Management position, or maybe with the lessons I have learned I am the perfect person, but lessons are only ever any good if you make the necessary change and implement what you have learned.

What I mean by a 'busy fool' is that I work harder and not smarter, I have taken my eye well off the ball and this has been increasingly creeping in for a number of years. 

After the disaster of Xmas on Ebay I seriously need to get a grip, the hours I worked and the sacrifices I made where a great example of me being a 'Very busy fool', it ended up benefiting everyone except me, I made a huge loss on sales and this will be something I am trying to climb out of for a long while.

I have made quite a few mistakes in the past doing the same thing, working harder and not smarter with disastrous consequences far worse than those consequences I experienced at Xmas.

An excellent article that I recently read which you can find here, sums me up to a T really.

Number 4 I never do and I need to, I never get time for myself to do whatever it is that helps me relax, for one I have no idea what could help me relax, even a hot bath or shower is conducted at the speed of light with children frantically telling me their innermost thoughts, not even a trip to the loo can give me a precious few moments to just sit and be. Me time is something I have not experienced for that long, I have no idea what it is. Not even sitting in the car on  Friday night waiting for the kids to come out of badgers is me time as I always end up answering emails or nipping somewhere to do an errand or checking the time worrying about picking them up late, all it accumulates is stress, I feel stressed all the time and I know I am far from productive when under stress.

Number 2 is one of my biggest downfalls, Planning.. the old saying 'Fail to plan, plan to fail' definitely rings true with me, I am the worlds worst at planning and the thought of lists and business plans make my head spin. This is something that I am concerned about as I do not want to pass those bad traits onto the twins. I often find myself asking them to stop what they are frantically doing when I can see they are not getting the result they want out of the task at hand, and I get them to think about what it is they are wanting to achieve, and how they can get to that end goal by way of the steps they need to take. sadly I never apply this to myself, I never check myself and say 'stop a minute what are you trying to achieve here'.

Number 5 is one I am working on and have worked on since Xmas, a couple of my customers wanted me to drop everything and do what they needed right there and then, with tasks to complete as long as my arm, I did say no, whether I should have done that in a different way than what I did is undoubted, working with stress can make you rather snappy.

Number 6 on the tip list is one I do regularly, I speak to my elder son about random ideas, it helps me to hear ideas said out loud and points to discuss, often points that I never even thought of.

Number 7, the old procrastination, I am the queen of procrastination, enough said.

Number 10, has its roots in number 7, I know I need to do a diary of my weekly time so I can see where I am spending it, but number 7 always creeps in and it never ends up getting done.

The final piece of advice this article gives is:-

This is very sound advice and something that I certainly know, I have to get back on focus and start to work towards those goals instead of working towards the best interest of everyone else and boosting their profits instead of my own. I need to face some facts head on, step back and really take a look at what I am doing. The plane and simple bare facts are, I am losing money and not making it, with neither ventures am I achieving that goal, I need to sit and really evaluate what on earth I am doing and why.

One of my favourite quotes is:-

  
(Publilius Syrus is an interesting character, if you are not familiar with him I highly recommend finding out a little more about him, even Shakespear was inspired by Syrus)  



I can with hand on heart say that I have been a fool for far too long.....