05.27.08
A sense of accomplishment
Have you ever had something, whether it was a simple task or a big project, hanging over your head for what seems like forever? Finding the time to do it just doesn’t happen and each day that goes by means you’re that much farther behind in getting it done. Maybe it’s something with a deadline or a sense of timeliness and not doing it just makes it worse. You know other people are waiting for you to do it, yet it just isn’t getting done despite your best efforts to squeeze it into your busy schedule.
Well today I finished compiling several months’ worth of cataloging statistics. Big deal, right? It wasn’t so much the compiling that was hard– it was figuring out a new way to compile them, making sure that method was accurate, redesigning our statistical reports, and coming up with new instructions so that I could (hopefully) delegate the task to someone else in the future. It was a major project, to be sure! Compiling my department’s monthly cataloging statistics used to be so easy that I had it down to where it took just an hour or two to do (yeah, we hand-counted EVERYTHING we did in our department!). But a consultant came along last fall and was convinced I could get the same numbers out of our automated system. He said we should stop counting so much by hand and stop counting EVERYTHING we did. Easier said than done, I say.
After months of creating lists of data and trying to figure out where the system counts things differently than we humans count things, I’ve finally cracked the code. I’m actually looking forward to next week, when I can use my new method to compile the May statistics, hopefully within the first week of June. Then I can put my energies towards coming up with new statistical counts that reflect some of the new things we’re doing, such as getting shelf-ready books from vendors.
No matter what, I can’t forget the feeling of calm and the sense of accomplishment I felt when I posted the last report on our staff intranet and sent an email to my department announcing the reports were available. Feeling caught up (even in just this one small area) was a great way to end the day and a wonderful way to start the week.
01.28.08
To file or to pile?
I laid a piece of paper on my “to file” pile today. Yes, that’s pile. I’ve let it grow into a pile, rather than file it as soon as I get it. Out of curiosity I measured the pile. It’s six inches tall. Pretty impressive, especially when you realize how thin a piece of paper is. That means there are lots and lots of papers in that pile, all waiting to be filed. I wonder when I’ll ever get around to filing them…
It’s time to get back on track re-engineering our TS department. Last fall, after a consultant made recommendations for sweeping changes, I’ve been frantically trying to put them all in place. Somewhere in these piles is a piece of paper with a Gantt chart and my progress (frozen in time) on each recommended change. Thankfully I have a computer file with that same chart and it’s proabably more up-to-date than the buried piece of paper. And I think I know where the thumb drive is with that file…
It’s going to be a busy late winter and spring. I have job descriptions to revise, statistics to compile and re-vamp, outsourcing projects to set up and monitor, and a SCAT table to create from scratch. This doesn’t include setting up OCLC holdings for our print and e-serials, giving employee performance appraisals, and cross-training my staff. Oh yes, and then there’s committee work, and conferences, and conference write-ups.
Sometimes I wish I could have a free day where I could come in and just go through my papers. Nobody would be allowed to call me or come into my office. I wouldn’t read email or blogs. I would have a large recycle bin handy to encourage me to lighten my load. I could wear comfortable work clothes, maybe even running shoes, to get me in the mood for action, rather than inertia. If I could bring in my husband, he would chastise me if I picked up a paper more than once and he’d keep me on track so I wouldn’t get bogged down or buried under the weight of the project. He’d also be there to remind me that if I had just filed the paper the first time I touched it, I wouldn’t have a pile to file and an huge project on my hands…
