09.22.08
Where have I been?
Where have I been?, you might ask (or maybe not, if you’ve quit reading this blog for lack of any posts). I’ve been working, day and night it seems, for the last several months. My VPN software was both a blessing and a curse, allowing me to get a lot done in a day, yet work beyond my 40-hour week. It wasn’t just one week, but several weeks in a row, all connected to become a month (or more- I’ve lost count).
Why so much work? I don’t know. When it rains, it pours, right? Several projects converged at one time, like overflowing streams flowing into one river that overspread its banks. I was swept away in the ensuing flood, caught up in the powerful current and pulled downstream away from familiar landmarks. I was planning my nights and weekends around work, cramming it in when my family wasn’t around, finding myself disappointed when my evening plans prevented me from working additional hours.
Then the unexpected happened. No, I didn’t burnout in a ball of flames. My laptop died on me. My whole absurd work-from-home obsession came to a screeching halt in one failed boot of my laptop. I’ve never felt so lost. It wasn’t that I lost files or programs; those were backed up. It was that I lost control. I lost myself.
I’m happy to report that I have a new laptop and most of my files and programs have been restored. We’re learning about one another, sort of like a very long first date. I’m re-installing the VPN software, but will not be obsessed with using it every night and weekend. I can’t read, relax, write or spend time with my family if I can’t wait for them to get out of my way so I can just get some work done. The work will be there in the morning, waiting for me as it always has. If it doesn’t get done by 5pm, then too bad. I can’t lose control and lose myself again. If I do that, then who will be there to do the work– at any time of the day?
08.21.08
Frantic days, exhausted nights
My to-do list and projects lists are expanding at a mind-boggling rate these days. It seems as though I just get a few things done and checked off my lists, then five more tasks magically materialize to replace them. I’m juggling more balls than a circus clown on speed. I have tasks and reminders scribbled on scraps of paper, recorded in my Outlook tasks, and listed on my Excel spreadsheet. Some are overlapping while others are listed only once– and subject to being lost among the growing piles on my desk (again!). Will I ever return to the peaceful days when I sometimes grew bored with routine tasks and long gaps between special projects? Most days now there’s hardly time for me to catch my breath, much less daydream.
I haven’t written much in this blog lately because I’m finding it impossible to relax long enough so I can think, which enables me to write, which enables me to think some more. My brain needs periods of quiet and introspection in order to digest and absorb the dozens of random thoughts running wild through it. Writing helps me to lasso those thoughts into an orderly herd, so I can lead them to productive outcomes at work. Without introspection and writing, those thoughts get jumbled up and tumbled up, stepping all over each other in their frantic dance. If too many of them are dancing about in my brain, no to-do list or priority list can tame them. The end result– my brain freezes up and I accomplish nothing. I feel like a scratched track on a CD– skip, skip, skip– no forward movement through my day.
I collapse into bed every night, despite having so many thoughts buzzing through my head up until it hits the pillow. I find myself hungering for the weekends, hoping I can rest and renew my energy, both physical and mental, before I face yet another hectic week. I often wonder how long I will be able to keep up with this breakneck pace of managing so many new projects, most of them with no end in sight. I know I should be thankful for my job when so many people are losing theirs in this economy. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what you have when you’re so close to the beast that you can’t see the whites of its eyes.
07.30.08
Project overload!
Don’t get me wrong, but I think new projects are like flypaper– they stick too me way to easily and are impossible to get rid of! Over the course of this summer, I was appointed to two new committees, bringing my total to five– yes, that’s five committees, to generate ever more projects for me. I hope the two newest committees are temporary assignments as my library implements two major, yet interconnected software applications, RFID and floating collections. These committees are on top of a new committee generated from a consultant’s recommendation for my department last fall and two permanent, longstanding committees I’ve had for a number of years. None of them were optional, so opting out wasn’t possible.
In addition to the two new committees, my library is evaluating CONTENTdm (digital project management software). I’m heading up this evaluation and trying to get my cataloging staff trained and on board to use it (at no cost to the library). To complicate matters, I’ve lost one employee this summer and her workload is now shared among the cataloging staff until replacements can be hired later this fall. And this week, one of my most productive catalogers is on vacation. Can you say too much work, too few people?
I’ve spent the last several months working overtime way more than I wanted to, sometimes as much as 7 hours per week. Do I earn more money for this? Nope. Does it get me farther ahead? Probably not, although at the time, it seems like the right thing to do because a deadline looms or my mind is fired up about an assignment following a meeting. Will I ever learn to stop working overtime? Who knows? I wonder if other people in similar positions in other professions are as overloaded as I am.
I’m starting to feel the squeeze of too much to do, day after day, unrelenting and overwhelming. Pushing my brain and my body to keep working on a project long after everyone else has gone home and the sun hangs low in the sky isn’t good for me– I know that in my heart. It’s just hard to turn off my stupid brain, because it enjoys working on creative and challenging things until it’s exhausted. Problem is… I’m feeling as though I’m moving towards burnout or a meltdown…unless I can figure out how I can delegate some of my routine tasks to my cataloging staff. With the current situation in my department and library, I know they’ll be thrilled to receive one more thing to do. 
06.11.08
A juggling act
Some days when I arrive at my office, my mind is abuzz with everything I need to do. Some tasks I do daily, like sending files of bibliographic records to Marcive for authority control or checking catalogers’ work as they cross-train into other areas. Other tasks are part of bigger projects, like updating documentation, filling out vendor profiles, or reviewing vendor work to assess the quality of shelf-ready books. Some days all tasks get pushed to the side as meetings, webinars, and employee counseling sessions eat into my time. Some tasks like the six-month overdue employee performance appraisals never get started, much less finished, because something else of burning importance invariably comes up.
It’s a never-ending juggling act that sometimes leaves me literally short of breath– I mean shallow breathing, hyperventilating, short of breath. It comes from the feeling that everything, from small task to big project, is due right now– a feeling that all are of equal importance and high priority. In my mind, I know this isn’t possible or even realistic. But in my panicked heart of hearts, I sometimes wonder if it will all crush me some day, like a tiny bug under a size 11 shoe.
Thanks to the stress, my hair is graying at a faster rate than some of my staff are working in a day’s time. My facial skin is breaking out and the skin on my forearms is getting blotchy (probably just age spots). I’m skipping lunch, working late, and I never exercise any more (bad, bad, I know). I think I look perennially tired, but thankfully, nobody has pointed it out to me (yet). I have more to read, to do, and to think about than ever before.
Despite all the stress, I’m enjoying the challengesof my job more than ever before. We’re starting a digitization project with OCLC’s CONTENTdm software, we’re getting shelf-ready books from two (and possibly three) vendors, we’re looking at ways to streamline our cataloging and processing procedures, we’re going to install Innovative Interfaces’ Floating Collections product, and I’m still trying to re-organize my department’s workflow and cross train staff in response to a consultant’s recommendations last fall. All of this is in addition to serving on numerous committees within and outside of my library. Every so often I drop a ball or two, but not for long. There’s always someone to remind me to pick it back up again.
05.18.08
Pollyanna
I took home a bunch of work this weekend, thinking I’d spend some time doing it so I could feel caught up come Monday morning. I should have known better. I already have too much work to do at home, so what was I thinking? I do the same thing every night– take home way too much to read, compile, summarize, or even absorb. Now I find myself doing the same most weekends. Sometimes I wish I could slip a professional journal under my pillow and through osmosis, absorb the latest library information contained within it.
I wish I could multi-task even more than I do. I want to do not three or four things at once, but ten. I want to compile statistics while browsing my email, file papers while scanning my blogs, and catalog problem books while checking staff work. And as each new day dawns, like a perennial dummy, I think “This is the day I will get it all done.” Pollyanna strikes again!
I wish I had the capability to have a really good idea of what I can realistically accomplish in an hour, or a day, or a week. I’m too optimistic for my own good. For example, this weekend I brought home a vendor profile to finish filling out, an employee performance appraisal to start working on, 2 professional magazines to read, several management binders to re-read (so I could get into the right frame of mind to tackle the appraisal), and 2 sets of conference notes to summarize. It was not fun toting home all that stuff and it’ll be less fun dragging it back Monday morning– especially knowing I didn’t touch any of it. What was I thinking? I should ask Pollyanna– I’m sure she knows the answer.
05.15.08
Miserable day
I struggled to wake up this morning and I felt like I was catching a cold. I’m feeling the effects of too many late nights and early mornings. They make for a horrible combination for staying focused and being on an even keel emotionally. The weather didn’t help either. It was cold, rainy, and oppressively gloomy all day. My head throbbed with a dull headache, my contacts felt dirty, and my neck and back ached. Two meetings kept me away from my desk and every minor frustration nearly drove me to tears. Some days I just want to throw up my hands and run out the door, never to return.
I’ve been struggling to find time to read the May issue of Wired Magazine. It’s one of the many new journals that have been mysteriously appearing on my desk with my name on a routing label. Somehow I’m collecting routed journals and I didn’t even try. (Maybe there’s a sign on my back…)
The cover article discussing how to Get Smarter contains lots of fascinating long and short articles, so I hate to pass along this issue without reading it. Some points of interest: I can relate to how panicking makes you stupid. I was surprised to learn that reading too fast (i.e. speed reading) affects your comprehension level. But the most interesting article of all is the one on remembering everything you’ll ever learn. It says the best time to commit new information to your memory is right before you forget it– which is nearly impossible to do in everyday life. Now I won’t feel too bad when I forget something. I can just say I forgot to remember it at the right time.
05.12.08
Workload exceeds maximum!
Each time I got a voice mail today, my voice mail system gave me an ominous warning that my inbox was getting so full, it was considering not letting me hear any messages. It told me I had to delete or move emails first in order to free up space. It came down to my basic curiosity– how bad did I want to know who the caller was or what they wanted? Would it be worth it to free up inbox space just to find out I had a new task, project, or problem to handle?
Hmmm… curiosity got the better of me. I decided to squirrel away some unread newsletters that were piling up. I stuffed them into a folder on my hard drive, along with dozens of other unread newsletters from the same sender. Sigh… wish I had time to read them. Maybe someday…. Wait- forget that daydream of getting caught up– the voice mail beckons. After hearing it, I was right. I have a new project to work on and a phone call to return. Guess I’ll have to read those newsletters later, whenever that is…
I’m so far behind on reading my blogs I might as well clear out the aggregator and start over. When I worry about what I may have missed in unread blog posts, I try to tell myself if it were that important, I’d find time to read them every day. Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially when the voice mail and email inboxes are full to bursting.
In addition to emails, voice mails, and newsletters, I tried desperately to keep up with new projects today by writing them down on a pad of paper. It was a great idea– until I remembered I had several pads of paper scattered about my desktop with lots of old projects written on them. Guess it’s time to consolidate them on one large piece of paper and figure out which ones need to be done first.
I’ve tried putting new projects or tasks into Microsoft Outlook’s tasks and assigning due dates, reminders, and priorities. But they only end up annoying me when the reminder pops up and I don’t have time to do the task or project right then, usually because something else has come up. I know I can change the reminder or even dismiss it. I can also ignore it and have the software tell me how many hours, days, or even weeks I’ve been ignoring it. There’s nothing like being reminded you’re really far behind on your to-do list–and like a true packrat, I can accumulate overdue reminders like nobody else.
05.04.08
Overwhelmed!
If anyone was following this blog regularly, you’ve probably wondered what happened to me or maybe even given up reading it. If you were disappointed in my poor performance, you have my sincerest apologies. It’s just that I’ve been super-busy lately. I’ve started at least 5 different posts, but have been unable to perfect and publish any of them. So rather than finish writing even one of them, my solution is to write a new one! What else would a packrat do? If I can’t accumulate unwritten blog posts, then I’m not a true packrat.
One of the things that has overwhelmed me lately is my accumulation of new blog subscriptions. For the longest time, I had a manageable collection of blogs to read– somewhere around 65. But in the course of keeping up with my professional readings, I’ve discovered more blogs and subscribed to them. Being the packrat that I am, the number quickly jumped to 92 (I just added another today http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/). I don’t want the number to rise any higher, so I need to review the list and prune the deadwood. (I also need to learn how to speed read.)
Before I pruned any blogs from my reader, I decided to read through some of them. Of course, I didn’t get very far before finding this post from Steve Rubel about attention crash and managing email, blogs, and everything else our in digital world. He referred to Inbox Zero, which offers tips on keeping your email inbox empty. A colleague of mine already recommended this same link to me, but I’ve failed to spend enough time investigating or implementing it. Maybe it’s because my own inbox is so overwhelmingly stuffed that I feel there’s no hope for ever getting it to zero. Inbox Zero could more accurately refer to my attention span, which is hovering around zero these days.
Steve wrote about investing in search tools, although he didn’t mention a new tool called Twine, which I’ve signed up to beta test. Twine is a semantic web application that’s supposed to tie everything together, meaning you tell it what you’re interested in and it searches the Web for that information. It can make recommendations and even link you up with like-minded people who share the same interests.
Steve’s blog also mentioned the book The 4-hour workweek by Timothy Ferriss. I just got a copy from my library over the weekend, so I have yet to read it. Hopefully I can work it into my piles of nonfiction books awaiting me on my hope chest at home (how appropriate!– they’re hoping to be read). When I figure out Twine and read Tim’s book, I’ll let you know if either of them are useful, whether or not you’re a packrat.
04.21.08
Piles, piles, and more piles
The last few weeks have been so hectic I can barely find a place on my desk to do my work. I was off for just half a day last Friday and the remaining white space on my desk was consumed by stacks of books and interoffice mailers that landed there in my absence. It was doubly hard to concentrate last Friday because I was awakened early in the morning by a rare Midwestern earthquake. A few hours later, an aftertshock shook us at work, as if we didn’t already have enough to chat about. It seems there have been too many distractions lately, from people in the office to the moving ground beneath my feet.
This week I face the challenge of cramming 5 work days into 4. I’ll be out of the office for most of next week while I attend IUG in Washington, DC. I’m dreading in advance the amount of stuff that will clutter my desk while I’m out. I feel more than the usual pressure to clean up the piles so I’ll know what’s new when I get back. No point in having old problems mix with the new. When I return, I’ll have to write up a report summarizing what I saw and learned (unless I can cobble it together in the airport on the way back).
Maybe I need for a crack to open in the ground and swallow my desk. That would certainly solve my immediate problems of having a messy desk- both before I leave town and after I return.
