Tuesday
1:47 am
Closed the laptop, crawled into bed, and practically melted into my pillow.
7:00 amThe alarm is very similar to that of fly at a barbeque that just won't stay away from your burger. You can swat at it, but it just doesn't go away.
7:15 am
The alarm clock won! I remember a statement that Zig Ziglar always used to say, "I can't understand why people call it an alarm clock. Alarm is when there is a fire or some sort of an emergency. I call it an opportunity clock. If you can hear it, you've got an opportunity." Anyhow, the 'opportunity clock' got me up!
7:30 am
Showered up and pumped!
7:45 am
6 scrambled eggs
1 bowl of Shredded Wheat
1 cup of coffee
8:00 am
Cooked another 2 eggs for Rachel and left the coffee on for her
Chased Reese around the kitchen
Chatted with Isaac, Reese & Rachel over breakfast
8:15 am
Kissed everyone then jetted out the door
8:17 am
Popped in a little Eric Clapton
(really I was listening to a business CD, Clapton sounds much cooler though)
8:25 am
Arrived at The Academy of World Taekwondo
8:30 am
Private training client (Amy) arrives
9:00 am
Rachel and her two private training clients arrive (Betsy & Mandy)
9:30 am
Private training client (Pete) arrives
Recall thinking how cool it is working and watching Isaac & Reese play
10:11 am
Pete makes a remark, "I'm not sure you understand what you're getting into by having 3 kids."
Note: Pete has 2 kids
10:30 am
Meet with Bob our Student Relations Manager (that's the person that enables myself and other instructors the ability to communicate with new students, old students, and potential students)
11:00 am
My world collapses-
Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (a good book, but very boring) says to spend your time in 1 of 4 areas of the Time Matrix- The Not Urgent, but Important category. There is also the Urgent/Important, Not Urgent/Not Important, and Urgent/Not Important. With good planning, and self discipline it is easy to stay in the Not Urgent/Important category.
Sometimes... things get away from you and when it rains, it pours! I don't consider myself superman by any means, but I do consider myself mentally tough and a hard egg to crack. Given the right circumstances, even superman breaks down.
I'm not sure what happened between 11:00 am and 1:30 pm, nor do I feel like trying to recollect it. To others, I know I seemed relatively normally, perhaps mildly disconnected.
1:30 pm
I arrive at home and have lunch with my family
Deli style turkey sandwich with mozzarella cheese
Grapes & blueberries
Pulled myself mentally together to manage the rest of the day
1:45 pm
Calls and emails start coming in regarding whether we will have class tonight
I got on the phone and consulted with Mr. Walton, Mrs Krake, and of course Rachel. We decided to cancel all classes.
2:17 pm
Email goes out for cancelled classes
Called Bob to cancel work at Eagle location
2:30 pm-3:30 pm
Voice broadcast recorded, uploaded, and sent to 230 students by the click of a button, a 5 minute task (unfortunately my computer kept crashing and didn't get out until 3:30 pm)
3:30 pm
Head to Boise school to put up sign
4:00 pm
Taught class for students that didn't receive voice broadcast on time (3 students)
6:00 pm
Got home, got hit by a snow ball, then walked straight through the kitchen, up the stairs and right into another hot shower. I refused to think about anything OTHER than waterfalls, jungles, forests, flowers, blue skies and sunshine.
6:15 pm
I'm in my ski git' up and Isaac and I are plowing the driveway in an attempt to collect as much snow as possible to build the biggest snow fort. My batteries are recharged!!!
Isaac and I played outside until Rachel called us in for dinner.
8:00 pm
Isaac and I take out the garbage and recycling
8:15 pm
Eat dinner- Chicken, red beans & rice
Rachel and I chat at the dinner table
9:00 pm
Isaac is in bed
Reese fell asleep while we were outside playing
9:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Rachel and I work in the office in tandem on our computers. Oddly, she worked on my laptop and I worked on her desktop. I'm still confused about this.
11:00 pm-1:30 pm
Rachel calls it a night
I touch base with Nitesh in India regarding our Online Training Academy
I purchased an email response system and setup a merchant service account and gateway (credit card system) so Nitesh can begin integrating this.
1:30-2:18 pm
Trying to recall my day for this Blog post
2:10 pm
Reese has a bad dream
When looking back at my day, the one thing that it was lacking was my therapy sessions (see other blog post) and exercise. Stephen Covey (wow, 2 times in one blog post- he is the time management guru you know) always discusses sharpening the ax. He tells this story- The lumberjack is out in the forest just hacking a way at a tree with his dull ax. The boss comes up to him and says, you ought to sharpen that ax. The lumberjack says, I don't have time. What a predicament we find ourselves in sometimes. We get so easily engrossed in what we're doing, we sometimes forget about the very obvious- the need to sharpen the ax.
People say to me all the time, "I don't know how you do it... Do you ever sleep..? etc., etc.," The answer is quite simple, I keep my ax sharp. I found out today how hard I'm swinging that thing and if I miss one ax sharpening session, I'm toast!
So how do I sharpen my ax?
- Exercise-with my classes or on my own
- Teaching class- In the right frame of my mind, teaching rejuvenates you when you consider the knowledge you're empowering students with
- Therapy- Shoveling the driveway, then playing in the snow
- Meditation- In the form of an evening shower
- Reading nightly- Nonfiction & fiction
- Writing chapters for my first book
- Calling a friend everyday
How do you sharpen your ax?
Duncan Richardson
Chief Master Instructor
The Academy of World Taekwond0
Ph: (208) 381-0587
http://www.freekaratelesson.com/
1 comment:
You know, that appears to be the perfect day, meltdown and all. It was organized, had purpose and had the flexibility to have situations go awry and still turn out good. We have a motto here at our house: "we had better show up in heaven tired and used up otherwise we did not utilize our lives as they were intended. Keep up the good work AWT!
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