Message of the Day - I called the Wrong 'Joe'

Good Morning,

 

Yesterday, during some free time I started going through my contact list and calling some folks I had not spoken to in a while. I came across this one ‘Joe’, and remembered the salty old codger at a former company I worked at. The call went through and ‘Joe’ answered. We started talking and he told me about his day, and something sounded weird. The voice was younger, the daily tasks were not something a grandfather and heart attack survivor would be doing. I asked a few questions and found that I had called the wrong ‘Joe’. I had two people in my contact list with the same exact name: one I had known for about five years and another which I had met about a year ago.

 

Networking is a great tool to help you grow your connections and reach and help create opportunities for you to grow. One challenge, though, as I found out yesterday, is that the more people you know, the better organized you need to be. I had been thinking about pruning my contacts list as some folks I had not spoken to in nearly 10 years, and it is time they should probably come out of the list. That idea has consistently been back-burnered,

 

Oddly, at the same time, I am in the process of re-organizing my organizing using material I learned from a recent book (go figure….). The book, by David Allen, is called ‘Get Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity’ (http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280). I am putting all of my information, my projects, my wish list items, my next action steps, calls I need to make, etc., and getting it all put down on appropriately labeled pads. Hopefully this weekend, I will have everything listed out. It idea is to get everything out of my mind and onto paper or electronic storage so I can manage it better. With everything I need and want written out, the chances of me forgetting is greatly reduced. It has so far helped reduce my stress level a bit, and I hope to do this at work as well.

 

With all the books I read, I fear becoming a flavor of the month person, so I have learned to try ordering from a Chinese Restaurant Menu (Something from column A, something from column B). By picking and choosing I add to my style and remain relatively consistent in my work, with a slow, but noticeably improvement over time (or so I hope).

 

I will let you know how my reorganizing effort goes, and will add cleaning up my contacts to my projects to do list so I don’t forget it again.

 

And today, I will try calling the other ‘Joe’.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

PS: If you know others who may enjoy this message of the day, please pass this message on or invite them to receive them themselves by sending a request to me. If you wish to stop receiving these, please also let me know. Thank you!!!