Thorny Areas

Half the day is over. That is, half of my business day. It is Friday. I am facing the temptation to grab the car keys and go. Or forget the car - the park's a stone's throw away and calling my name. My jogging shoes are read to be jumped into.

I am blessed as well as challenged by the many choices of my 8 hour workday. See, my husband and I run a manufacturing business www.gamefacegearusa.com . The factory that makes our fishing harnesses is an hour north. So I don't actually have to be here in my office to get work done. A laptop travels. A phone or email gets the job done. So really, I could climb Mt. Everest and not be missed!

However delightful my situation seems, it really does cause slight angst at times. I don't know why, but I always enter Fridays with a sense of entitlement followed by procrastination. This is the broken record I allow entrance on Fridays, "You can just wind down and ease into the weekend. You deserve it! Look at how much you got done all week. Carp Diem!" (and all that - ugh)

The ever present "put off today what you can do tomorrow" rages its ugly head and comes back to bite me (on Mondays). Daily I purpose to avoid the tug of war which exists between my personal and business life but Fridays always challenge me more. Unlike the yin and yang symbol - there are many gray areas or overlapping areas that challenge business owners. Today, I hope to share my Friday struggles in order to help those of you out there with the same "thorns" in the proverbial "side". My goal is also to share some solutions I have found valuable in helping to address my Friday struggles. I said helping. I want you to know I am still a work in progress re Fridays. And know this, it is Friday and this blog is a great excuse for not getting my work done. Really. Blogging is a great reason to not get my work done and then go have lunch!

From here on out I will refer to overlapping business and personal time as "thorny areas". Thorny areas take us away from uninterrupted, productive business. Thorny area number one for me is email. Because I have one Outlook Express but many email addresses, I added many folders to my In Box. Just like filing papers away, I immediately "file" emails into the proper folder. So, boom, boom, boom! I only had 10 emails to read from the entire week. Friday is my email reading day. Feels so good to see white space in my In box. However in James 5:16 fashion - I have a confession to make! I entered a thorny area when I read my pet newsletters and submitted just a few pet products reviews. I also emailed my Mom and searched an archive for a really really good sermon message from many months ago. Unproductive. Yes! Resoundingly yes - I am guilty as charged.

Thorny area two today? I surfed the net - for news even though no news is good news. My business is unaffected directly by who is accompanying who to Iraq. And I did not really need to read the article on Fox News about how we appear to Aliens. But the article entitled Drowning Man Reeled In by Fisherman was worthwhile. I am a sucker for human interest stories and it was about a fisherman! I hope that man is going to be okay.....

As soon as I turn my computer on for the first time every day, I allow myself 10 mniutes of "web hopping". Sometimes I already have a website written down that I wanted to check out. Sometimes I want to see a website for a personal reason and it's okay during the first 10 minutes of my business day. I have allowed myself this freedom so I don't interrupt the productive time I will spend at my computer. This system works pretty well for me everyday!

I am not a phone person so score one for me! But the last thorny area I would like to share with you is lunch. I believe in Siesta! Can I hear an Amen?! Whether a siesta takes place under a tree or in a car, on the beach or the chair - I like my siesta anywhere!! My Friday mind has run off to Dr. Seuss land and I am wondering if this is because I am thinking of food - the thought of Green Eggs and Ham Sam I Am is causing me to sign off sooner than planned. After all - - it's lunchtime and I am meeting friends to talk about what else? Weekend plans - after all it is Friday! Gotta go....