Make Yourself Un-fireable

 Nobody likes the idea of good people losing their jobs. Most don't want their resources wasted either.

The cold reality of, well, in the real world, people need to bring value to what they do for a living. No matter what you do. Public sector, private sector. It doesn't matter. If your not helping things grow, you may have to go.

Fortunately losing a job is not the end of the world. There are always another opportunity for someone fired. The direct competition may be hiring, or it may require starting over by learning a completely new skill set. Regardless there is something else out there. In my personal experience, that something else ends up being much better.

That's all nice, but what if you have your dream job? That's when you need to make yourself un-fireable.

Here's the bad part. It's going to take effort and focused attention on continuous improvement.

You need to put constant effort on doing what you do, the very best you can do it. You need to become a subject matter expert. You need to constantly learn. You need to put effort into working well with others... even those coworkers you don't like. You need to be effective. You need to be efficient. You need to put effort into your work. 

Sounds rough, but to some it up. It comes downs to being focused on being the best you can be at what you do for a living and adding all those "soft skills" that make your work easier and are some of those important transferable skills. Skills that can help you become better at doing something else for a living. No matter if it is something completely different at another company, or if you get promoted up to a higher position.

Empty Barrels Make the Most Noise

 Empty barrels make the most noise. 

I like this saying, for it is such a spot on metaphor. You see this all around you in every aspect of your life. Those with really nothing to say, say the most. Those who scream the loudest about something being a crisis, when whatever has them raging is really not a crisis at all. 

From my perspective, these empty barrel people tend to be people who have succumbed fully to their biases. Confirmation bias, familiarity bias, etc. They have replaced any impartial reasoning with emotional fueled outbursts.

The echo chambers of the social media world we now live in has created a lot of empty barrels.

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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I Can Be Gone in 60 Seconds

If I had to leave my job, I could clear out my desk in about a minute flat.

I'm by no means somebody one would call a minimalist, however I have a pretty streamlined professional workspace. Everything I need to work fits in the typical office style backpack.

In our digital age, that is not very shocking. We have room for more information in a typical laptop than a building of file cabinets from the past.

But what can be difficult to keep under control are all the physical items you cant load onto a hard drive. Sample components of a product you produce. The big 3 ring binder catalogs from a vendor and other promotional items sent to you in the mail. Not to mention personal items like plants, pictures, etc.

I greatly reduced the clutter my workspace many years ago. When the company I thought I would work for the rest of my life suddenly shutdown. I spent far more time that was comfortable packing up. 

From that point, I had a rule of no more personal items at work that couldn't fit into a banker box. I also started keeping a banker box for that very need under my desk. I learned the valuable lesson that even if you are happy with your position and even if the company want you to stay forever, there can be no guarantees. Life happens.

This worked well for several years, until I took a new position at a company. It was a great opportunity that I could not pass up. During the first six months of the new role, I still had my old role, obviously at a lesser amount. I would continue to work my old position for a day here or a few hours in the morning there. We had this arrangement because I had a project that was nearly complete, so we'd spend more time bringing another engineer up to speed than if I'd just wrap it up.

There was one noticeable inconvenience during this period. The two roles required me to be in two seperate building. After having to go to a different build to grab something I left on my other desk afew times, I did another downsizing to my work kit that I still am at many, many years later.

Everything I need to work is kept in my backpack

Anything left at my desk if I'm not there, I can permanently leave behind if necessary 

So what's on my desk that can be left behind at anytime? Not much.

• Stapler
• Tape dispenser 
• Post it notes and some disposable pens
• A few personal pictures printed out on office paper & tacked to a bulletin board

Neatly packed in the backpack are:

Pens, markers, whiteboard markers, battery bank, chargers for phone & laptop, paper journals, first aid kits, an extra fleece, snacks, water bottle, and a few other EDC items.

This "office load out" has served me well for many years and has become a very practical and efficient way for me to work. Especially now that I work for a large company that both embraces the hybrid office workstyle, and has several sites in the region.

With our hybrid office, I am able to work from home a day or two (sometime more) from home. I can also be needed for a day or two at one of our sister site on occasion. Having everything I need to do my job from home, my office, a conference room, or somebody else's vacant office at a different building is the way to go. Never have to dig through desk drawers looking for a cable for a laptop.

Beside the convenience of being prepacked for a business trip or an unexpected work day from home due to illness or weather; I truly feel having this streamlined office in a bag setup makes me more effective and efficient.

If the future take my career to a position or location where I am only able to work from one and one location only, I would still keep this system going.

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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So I Guess I'm Going Full Homestead...

 I guess I'm going "full homestead" this year. Besides giving a try at raising quail, I'm going to up my gardening game too. Personally I don't think I qualify has a modern homesteader just yet, but who knows where that line is drawn. 

I was planning on planting a couple of containers of beans and maybe a pepper plant or two. Keep it simple. Well that didn't last long.

At work some new equipment arrived in some very nice crates. Crates that I thought would make some excellent planter boxes, plus nice leftover lumber from the lids and bottoms. 

So instead of them being broken up to send to the recycler. I get to take them home. 

Now with three large planter boxes, I decided to expand my plans for a modest little garden a bit. Then I started looking around the property and looking over a heirloom seed website, and you guessed it. Now I got a bunch more seeds to plant than I was originally going to go with this year.

In fact, I made two orders for seeds. I made a second order for what will become an indoor herb garden. When asking a coworker when I should start my peppers, the conversation then covered a bunch of gardening topics. More topics than I planned... But it was at the end of the day Friday and she loves gardening. No one else in the office apparently is into gardening, so she basically went off with excitement to talk to someone about her favorite hobby.

All that to say if I don't screw it up, I'll have fresh basil and oregano for my quail eggs. 

Eggs Away!

 Pretty much since the day I moved into my house, I had ideas of making a modern homestead. I nice garden, some chickens, maybe a pig ot two. Not a full on hobby farm operation to grow all of my own food. Just something to supplement my groceries and help me get through a rough spot.

I've raised a garden a few times but thats been about it. 

Now, with the price of eggs and constant hinted threats of bird flu. I'm going to raise poultry. 

What has always kept me from raising chickens is winter. The idea of shoveling out a chicken coop in the dead of winter is pretty much the deal breaker for me. I could raise some boilers, but I'll be honest. I'm lazy and the butchering process for chickens can be quite involved.

But then I remembered quail.

While quail eggs are about a third the size of a chicken egg, quail are easier to take care of, and reach maturity in 6-8 weeks instead of 6-8 months. Plus they are surprisingly harty, able to handle the Wisconsin winters with minimal shelter. 

So quail it is going to be. I have a bunch of hatching eggs on order and I have my brooding pins setup. Even gave my new incubator a test run.

Looks like the Lazy Homestead is going to be a real thing.

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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The Email Purgatory Folder

 Since 2019 I've been practicing a form of "zero inbox" with my work email. For over five years now, when I shutdown the work laptop, there are no emails in the Outlook inbox. I wish I started doing this years earlier. Those who follow some sort of zero inbox practice know how good it feels at the end of the day when there is nothing in the email inbox screaming for your attention.

My personal system is a bit different than what you'll see others do. Most follow a digital file structure for their emails like described by David Allen's Getting Things Done. A productivity book that you'll find displayed in the office of many middle managers. 

My email file structure is similar. 

• Inbox that gets processed several times a day
• A folder I named "In Process" which is my version of the "tickler" folder
• Several archive folders for each project / customer

Up to this point there is no real surprises if you're familiar with the GTD process. Emails land in the Inbox. Periodically throughout the day I process the emails. Accept or decline meeting invites. Delete older links in a email change. Act on urgent emails and/or the ones that take little time. Then move into the "In Process" the emails that I can address later, or I am waiting for a response, etc. Up to this point pretty much the same as everyone else.

What I do differently addresses the challenge most have with a Zero Inbox system:

How are you sure you don't delete something you may need later?

My solution; email purgatory. I have another folder I call "Hold 90 Days" that I place maybe half the emails I "delete" throughout the day. As the name suggests, this folder is setup to delete any email that is more than 90 days old. My logic is if I didn't need to look for an email in 3 months, it doesn't need to be saved. 

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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People Who Say They Want Term Limits, Really Don't Want Term Limits

 I'm seeing term limits being thrown out in the new feeds. Makes sense, we just had an election and about half the population doesn't like how it turned out. Just like every election cycle really. While calling for amending the US Constitution sounds like a good idea, it's not going to happen.

You really think the people in office are going to vote to removed themselves from their power? Get real, that ain't happening.

Here's an example. Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Now please keep in mind I don't want to throw one political party under the bus by calling out Senator Cruz, but he's the first example I thought of. I remembered the below linked news article.

Ted Cruz Files Bill Limiting Senators to Two Terms

Senator Cruz filed a bill in Congress to limit senators to 2 six year terms... while running for his 3rd term. Senator Cruz won his re-election to his third term. Anyone want to make a friendly wager that he runs again in 2030?

But those in congress aren't the only ones full of BS when they say they want term limits for politicians. So are the citizens who bemoan they want term limits. They really don't want term limits, the person / party they voted for didn't win. I'm sure that's not the case for every person who calls for term limits, but certainly the majority.

Now even though it is extremely unlikely there will ever be term limits by law in the United State, you do still have an option. They same option that's been part of our political system since the beginning... Don't vote for the incumbent. It's really that simple. Vote them out!

Of course the knee jerk reaction is something along the lines of "but I vote for X party and the current congressman is from X party." So? Do you want term limits or not? If you are only going to vote for an X party candidate, vote for a different X party candidate during the primary elections.

To be blunt, that's not likely to happened either because the average voter is too lazy to put anymore effort into voting than just put a check in the box by the candidate's name that lines up with your favorite political party. 

If only the average American put as much effort into deciding who they send to Washington DC and their state capital as they do picking their fantasy football team... Then there would be likely be no call for term limits. The swamp would be self draining.

Most people who say they want term limits, really don't want term limits. The person / party they voted for didn't win.

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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Deep Work again for the first time

 I bought a copy of Deep Work by Cal Newport back in 2021 after hearing him interviewed on a podcast.

Amazon link if you'd like to get your own copy. 

The book was talked about in great detail by in the productivity circles of the internet. Infact, I was exposed to the book so much online over the course of a few weeks that I don't think I actually read it until this month!

I was cleaning up the home office and found the book and thought I would read it again, for I definitely need a refresher. Many of my old habits of distraction have return and there are once again, not enough hours in the day to get work done to my expectations.

So as I started the book, I quickly released I didn't read it yet...  At least not past the introduction. That was familiar territory, but then again that could have been discussed in one of the podcasts I heard on the books. At any rate....

Over the past few weeks I have started to put recommendations from this book into practice and it is already making a noticeable difference on how my day goes!

The book suggests the tactic of blocking off chunks of your calendar for focused, unrestricted work. While time blocking is nothing new and a tool I've been using for well over a decade, I have now started be much more intentional. I make a point to eliminate as many potential distractions as possible, and define specific tasks I am going to work on (not just "work on this project" for an hour).

Possibly the best hack (so far) that I've implemented into my office life is shutting off MS Outlook for about half my time in the office. That's right. I don't just turn notifications off, minimize the Outlook window on my computer. I close the app entirely for hour long (if not longer) stretches at a time. 

And not just for times I block my calendar off to focus on "deep work" either. Basically I just turn off Outlook at an early trigger point in my morning, such as during a Teams meeting or my first blocked hour or half hour of focused "deep work." Then the rest of the day it is turn on or half in roughly one hour intervals.

One caveat is that it's on the last 45 minutes to an hour of the day. That way I can put out any end of the day fires and be able to shut things down with a zero inbox. Yes, being able to have a zero inbox is actually possible. I've been able to do it since 2019!

Amazon links to this book and others I recently recommended here on this blog

Deep Work by Cal Newport

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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Grid Down!

Let me make a quick list.

1. An aging power grid infrastructure
2. A commitment to reduce fossil fuel power plants
3. An ever growing population connected to the aging power grid infrastructure
4. Increasing demand for the power grid from both the growing population and our technology centered lifestyles and workplaces
5. Increasing risks to the power grid from cyber attacks, severe weather, mechanical failures, etc.

Is my tinfoil hat on a little too tight, or is it a logical theory that the days of us typical Americans always have the lights come on at a flick of a switch could be ending soon? I'm not saying that we're going back to the days of before electraction. However I am saying that scheduled rolling blackouts in urban areas or unexpected power outages may become more of the norm.

This is what of the things that concerns me as we head into the new year.  In a recent post I mentioned I am making a focused effort to get my house in order. Both figuratively and literally. 

One of the literal things I'm doing is assessing my addiction to electricity. If I have to go without grid power for days or even weeks, what is going to happen?

Over a decade ago, we had a windstorm that tore up my local area. I didn't have power for 3 days. Fortunately, I had several things in my favor. I live a fairly simple lifestyle and enjoy camping. So not having lights for a few days was no big deal. Plus I had the camping gear, light lanterns and headlamps to take the edge off.

My biggest concern was my fridge and freezer. Fortunately, I had friends nearby that weren’t impacted my the power outage that had a almost empty "garage fridge" that I was able to use.

While I made it through that 3 day blackout pretty much unphased, it did make me think about what if power was lost for a longer time or larger area. That got me into canning. So now if push comes to shove, I could can some of the meat I have in my freezer using a propane stove and pressure cooker. 

If blackouts become more frequent. I may need to rethink my electrical usage, habits and sources. With my camping and portable radio hobbies, I do have a small collection of batteries and some solar. Currently I'm saving for a larger solar generator for use at the house to augment my grid power. 

Recently I purchased a small dual fuel generator. Not big enough to run my house like nothing is wrong, but it will run my fridge, freezer and top off batteries.

I am also assessing my habits and seeing what I can reduce, eliminate or do more efficiently.

In all reality, we should take a closer look at our electrical / electronic addictions and see how we can do better. Besides being better prepared for rough times, it's just better for our environment and our checkbooks. Two worthy reasons on their own.

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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With New Years here, may I make a suggestion?

I have had a copy of Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic sitting on my coffee table since 2016. Reading it is part of my daily morning routine.

You should have one too. It's a book I cannot recommend enough.

As the name implies, the book has 366 chapters or more accurately, daily meditations. Each daily reading starts with a direction quote from a classic stoic philosopher, such as Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. After the quote, is a single page commentary from the author to give more insight and perspective. 

Studying the stoic philosophy has helped me improve my life and outlook tremendously. That, combined with deleting Facebook and stop watching the nightly news has drastically reduced the stress in my life, and has helped me see a clearer path for me to navigate this insane world we have created for ourselves.

Amazon Link to order your own copy.

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As always, thank you for your time reading this. All comments are welcome. Even if you want to let me know how wrong I am. If you think others would get some sort of value, please share this on your socials.

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