Seeking Coastal Utopia

How many of you have heard of the Pareto Principle? Many of you do not know who or what Pareto is all about. “these are easier to do because of Pareto” photo by Giorgio Tomassetti on  Unsplash Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto was born into this world in the mid 19th century and died in the early 20th century. However, his contributions have long lived on, making the lives of engineers, sociologists, and economists much simpler due to his identification of the distribution that is now known as the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle is simply described as the 80/20 rule. It can apply to a number of generalities and allow you to quickly estimate (versus calculate) distribution or allow you to understand proportional values of something quickly, without having to do the deep dive calculations to multiple decimal points. Pareto Distributions occur naturally; it certainly occurs with humans and our activities. “20% is one portion and the 50&+30% gives us the 80%” by Ar...

Are you sure that you are doing the right thing? “Should I make dinner or weld the trailer frame?” photo by Christopher Burns on  Unsplash What is the right thing? Whatever it is, are you sure you are supposed to be doing what you are doing right now? How did you get to this point, and not realize that you are working (or not working) on the right thing? I struggle with this myself even as I sit here and write this blog. I believe I should be exercising, using fitness as a stress reducer, using it to remain healthy. Staying healthy so I can provide for my family. Watch my children grow old. Should that be the most important thing? the pendulum continues to swing… photo from the Omnibus Theater My problem is the pendulum swings too far and I either spend too much time pasted to the computer working or creating blogs or I spend too much time exercising, running down the miles. I rarely ever find that right balance which forces me to ask — am I doing the right thing, ...

Wake up! “do not let this escape” photo by Adrien Robert on  Unsplash This is not about getting enough sleep or using music or yoga or exercise to help someone wake from their dance with the Sandman, this is about us as a society turning a blind eye to things around us, ignoring the opportunities we have to make a change. Why have we turned into a society that is completely unconscious and underwater? It is though we hardly care about what is happening today, let alone tomorrow. Time for us to wake up. Time for us to take a step forward and make a significant change in our work and our lives today. Believe we can make a difference in our lives. We need to make the conscious choice to do something positive in our lives. What is happening right now that you can support? What is happening right now that you can take action on? What are you afraid of? “this plucky robot had the guts to try something new” photo by Dominik Scythe on  Unsplash Most of us go through ...

Wait, wait. This is all wrong. It is supposed to be ”…all work and no play…” and in the reality of life, I would agree with you. I would much rather spend my day mountain biking, running, swimming, climbing, playing sports, SCUBA diving, you name it — if I could be outside, sweating bullets, that is where I would rather be.  Yet unfortunately, it is a choice. I can choose to do those things I just described without receiving income, or I can choose to work and earn money to afford those things I want to do. The balance struggle begins. But I digress…. “why are you all swimming in circles? get to work!” photo by Pascal van de Vendel on  Unsplash We work because most of us need to. When we work, we are expected to carry out tasks and activities to be remunerated for our efforts through cash, stocks, bonds, or horse trading. So how do we complete those activities? Good old-fashioned labor. Nose to the grindstone . Get. Stuff. Done. Humans are social be...

What happened? You just looked at the clock and it is the end of the day, and you did not do what you intended to do. Although it was on your list of things to do, you talked about it, you made the plans, yet you never got to it. How is that possible? Retrace your steps during a typical working day. “what the hell happened?” by Jonathan Rados on  Unsplash Email. Facebook. Instant messaging Meeting Email Phone call. Meeting Another phone call. More (a metric buttload more) instant messages. Meeting. Email. . . . Huh, look at that at, the end of the day. And you did not do a single thing on your list. “person distracted by their stupid smartphone” by Erik Lucatero on  Unsplash Now let’s look at the weekend. The intent is to work on Halloween costumes or carve pumpkins, or . Coffee Email Web searches News Exercise Xbox Chores Grocery shopping. XBox Cleaning Dinner prep. Dinner Movie or TV Bedtime. Well...

We all do it. I am really good at it. I make excuses like a champ. “this is a pile of books I said I would read but didn’t” photo by Annie Spratt on  Unsplash Too many times I find myself in a situation, trying to rationalize why I did not complete a particular task. I may even spend more time trying to formulate an excuse for not completing a task than it would be for me just to go ahead and do the activity. Or I said I was “done” but, maybe 67% is not done . Does this sound familiar? I highly doubt that I am the only person that does this. So how do we break out of that self-sabotaging behavior? It is time to own it. Own that activity. You made the mistake of saying “yes” or “I will do that” or any other positive affirmation when someone asks you to do something. We just do not know how to say NO and we have a list of 214 things that need to be completed by tomorrow. When you say “yes”, you immediately realized in the back of your cluttered mind that you w...

What image does that title bring to mind? Boiling the ocean. What an immense feat! The level of effort that would be required to accomplish that task. The amount of work that would be required to boil the ocean. The immensity makes you wail internally with despair…. “a lot of water” photo by Giga Khurtsilava on  Unsplash This phrase is descriptive of a very difficult task, close to impossible . The project is massive in scope and scale, which may have been improperly scoped originally. It could be the type of project with an extremely ambitious goal which can potentially cause stress, frustration, and disappointment for those that are also involved because the project has an extremely low chance of success. So what do you do? Manage the scope. Scope is a life ring for the drowning person. In the case of a project that is out of control (or never in control), it is the tool that is used to ground everyone, in reality, providing a clear definition of the pro...

When our boss* comes to us to ask you to do something, do you ever say no? It is probably depending on which boss that it is, but most of us probably say “yes” and do the work.  We say "yes" even though we already have a plateful of work in front of us, and falling behind on the similar work. It is rare that a person says “no” to the boss and we need to figure out how that balance can be beneficial for both relationships. For those of you that say “no” outright, this is for you, too. “You are the best and I need you to get this done” by rawpixel on  Unsplash Most people realize that work is necessary. It provides us with the currency to purchase stuff. Important stuff like food, shelter, and clothing . It allows us to purchase things we want too, the toys like a medium format digital camera or a tranquility pod . We do not want to lose that opportunity to earn that paycheck. We do what we can to provide the right answer to keep us in good graces with th...

We live in a world of instant gratification. We seek the fast, cheap and easy. We consume information, live the vicarious fitness plan via the web, and buy the things that we want without getting out of our chair — in mere seconds. “yes, you really do need to work harder” by Jordan Whitfield on  Unsplash Hard work? We go to the vending machine over in the corner and buy it the premade something.  Prepackaged stuff. Ready to eat. Immediately consumed. Is this what we want? Of course we do! We are consumers. We are always trying to find a hack, we try to find a shortcut. We want our hard work to be easy. 6 Minute Abs! Get rich quick! Whiter teeth in just a few days! This is your hack to hard work . Hard work is only hard the first time you do it. Seriously. That’s it. Nothing else. It is not magical. It is not complex. It is just hard. We recognize that doing it the first time is hard, and after that, it is no longer hard. Wait, what? ...