Photo by foxspain

I’m going to admit something here. Some days I feel up and some days, well, I don’t. There are days when I really do feel like I am rocking my world. Words are flowing, I have great ideas, and execution is easy. And there are the other kind when I feel like the world is pushing back on me.

If you are honest, I am guessing you feel the same way. Up and down. And some weeks there are more downs than ups. I have a few tips I use:

1. Exercise — I can hear the groans coming but there is plenty of evidence that exercise and mental health go together. So on days when I feel out of sorts, I try to “make” me exercise. I’m pretty good at being my own drill sergeant.  “Give me 15 push-ups!” or “Ride that exercise bike for 5 minutes.” I love to walk but I don’t always want to walk, so if it is nice enough to walk, sometimes I phone a friend. My friend, Linda, walks with me sometimes but when she doesn’t, sometimes I call her and we talk while I walk. Dawn Bugni and I have had long conversations when I have to get back up my hill to get home. Somehow laughing with Dawn makes the walk easy.
2. Organization — when we are disorganized, everything can annoy us more. One of my ways of getting organized is to set my Flylady timer for 15 minutes (guys, you can use the microwave timer) and tackle some project that seems to big. Suddenly I have whipped through a pile of files, processed a batch of mail, or cleared my desktop and I feel better.
3. Time Management — a perpetual list maker, now with colored pens, I find that I accomplish more when I have a list and read it. Those two have to go together. Some days even making the list is hard but when I get the list made and periodically read it and check things off, I get more done.

The challenges of the economy, weather, moods, and family issues all make it harder to rock your world every day but if you are stuck, perhaps one or more of these tips will help you.

Every once in awhile I have to remember that every problem out there isn’t there for Julie (if you tend to be like me, insert your name here) to try to solve. If you do that all the time, the work you need to be doing will not get done because you are out trying to solve the world’s problems.

You can get sidetracked real easily in real life and even more so if you have an active online presence. You will find that you want to help this person or that person, answer this question or follow up on that topic or issue but you can only do so much.

Pick your spots, so to speak.  You don’t have to eliminate every outreach or helping task. The basic principals of a network are that you do want to give to build networking relationships but to be able to get your own work done whether it is working on a job search or career change, a job you presently hold or even your work around the house, you need to set limits so you can work on your own goals and move forward.

Ask yourself when you are tempted to jump in to help, should I let this one go? Should you say, “Not My Problem,” now and then? Make sense?

It wasn’t where I planned to go today but it is on my mind. There are different kinds of people. We can’t all be brilliant, creative, or talented in everything. The question was about hiring stupid people. I’ll let Mohammed address that on his blog because I am sure he will, I think the direction he was going is hiring unskilled people and I have no problem with that.

But the question he provoked for me is… “What if you are not stupid?” but “what if you make stupid choices?” Oh, I know, we all do that too… a thousand examples, including me falling on the ice and getting a black eye… But what if you have tons of potential but you don’t use it for good? Or tons of resources? Or tons of connections?

What if you fritter your time away with television, movies, video games, drinking, drugs, and never just get off the couch and get going? I talked about the Blame Game awhile back but it is bigger than that.

I have too much to do… too many options to even start to fit into 24 hours. What makes some people so different? I really don’t think it is because they are stupid. I think it is their choices.

Just wondering. You can talk about it here if you want.

Photo by Marc_Smith

2010 is a year of experimentation for me. As my regular blog visitors know, I have made some dramatic changes in my life this year. 2010 is my year to focus on my business, Design Resumes.

Let’s take Twitter for example. When I joined Twitter, initially, I was amazed that people were following me, people I didn’t follow. I felt wanted and somewhat honored. When people talked back to me, I was amazed. I grew the numbers I was following by researching interesting people and to some extent following back the people who followed me.

During the past summer, I got busy and didn’t tweet much. When I came back, I felt disconnected and thought it was because I wasn’t there and people didn’t know me any more. To some extent, that might have been true, but there was another cause. I had gotten to the point of following 1500 people. Most of the people were clueless that I was even following them and I hadn’t really communicated with most of them.

On the advice of Jim Connolly, I decided to decrease the numbers I was following so that I could actually see the conversation happening. I knew that would have an effect on my follower numbers but it didn’t really matter because I wasn’t conversing with most of them anyway.

When I am creating resumes for the sales profession, one of the keywords that often comes up is relationship building. For example, this bullet point from a Territory Manager:

• Generated over $3 million in annual sales through interaction with builders, building strong long-term relationships, which created repeat and referral sales.

You know how that client did that? He met with the builders. He built their trust. He shared their pain, rejoiced in their successes, and they in turn continued to buy his product. Relationship Building. It happens one connection at a time not in masses.

By trying to follow so many people, I couldn’t connect any more.

There was too much input. Too many voices. It was like one of those movies where a person is surrounded by voices talking, yelling, and screaming and after awhile, it just becomes one loud roar… no thread of conversation is left, just a constant roar, a constant din. Even using Tweetdeck, which lets me see columns of people I may not be following, I still find that keeping the number lower works best for me.

Do you know what is happening? I am talking to people again. I hear their voices (ok, their tweets). I find myself getting to know the people I follow better. I can rejoice in their successes, like HRMargo celebrating her new position. I can share snow shoveling strategies with InterviewAngel and TheJobQuest.

I would guess that everyone has different levels in input they can handle. For me, 1500+ was too many, I needed to reduce my numbers. Right now, I am following 240+ people which is probably still a few too many but I can hear the conversation.

How do I decide who to delete?

1. First, I look for people who have not been using the tool. If their last tweet was a month ago, they won’t miss me.
2. When I follow people to start out with, I look for conversation, not broadcasting because then I know that they will be valuable to me.
3. Common ground is a good thing but I have a breadth of interests so many people fall into areas of my interest.
4. People who do converse with me almost always stay on the list. I see Twitter as a communication tool, so talk to me and I will talk back.

If you were to use Twitter for job search with my old strategy, you would fail.

You would get lost in the shuffle and you would not be able to network. You couldn’t build relationships. Relationships are built through little interactions, building familiarity, confidence, and trust. However, if you would try my experiment and keep your following down, you will find yourself getting to know a community and communities network.

What do you think? How much input can YOU handle?

Talk to me, I talk back.