Don't You Do It!

Today definitely was not as productive as I could have hoped for as the only real bright spot was showing up to work before 8am at 7:45. The lab hours are from 8-4 but in recent months my days are a lot closer to start time of 8:15-9am with a closing time of 5-6pm. That is why it is hard for me to show up at or before 8am. I have a lot of leeway. Leeway has never been a good thing for me. Probably one of the reasons I have trouble progressing as a manager but I will leave that for another time. Time-wise I am not responsible for customer interaction so it is not mandatory that I am there to answer phones at 8am. Being on the production side of things allows for somewhat of a "just get the job done no matter the hours" sort of mentality. Which is kinda nice I must admit. However I really feel like my productivity increases when I get there earlier. It usually means that I got up without snoozing for 1-2 hours which leaves me fresh in the morning while not rushing and having to wake up at work. Snoozing might be the most confusing trait of mine. There is zero logic behind it. There are zero benefits to it. It is something I have done my entire adult life even though I am aware there is no benefit while recognizing the downside of leaving me lethargic to begin the day often setting a bad tone for the day. It is not just one alarm either. More often than not it is my phone alarm next to the bed in addition to an iHome alarm in the bathroom that gets really fucking obnoxious really quickly. I have been known to snooze both alarms for over an hour...yes that means getting out of bed every ten minutes to hit that big ole snooze button on the iHome. It really boggles my mind as to why I do it. So naturally if i have any chance of defeating my laziness this year the snoozing must go. Plus going in earlier leads to leaving earlier (not always) which usually leads to a more productive night.

Though I arrived a tad early I wasn't as productive at work as I would have liked though. I finished 2 of 8 tasks I had set for myself at the beginning of the day. This is often occurs during the beginning of the month when I have month wrap-up activities to take care of...never a big fan of those. This month is the biggest whammy of them all because a year end wrap-up is required of me in addition to preparing for the next management review (required by ISO) which is coming up later in January. The natural lazy tendency is to procrastinate as long as possible on these tasks until there is an external pressure (the boss in this case) to get them done. To buck this trend I will get the monthly wrap-up finished tomorrow and get started on, if not finish, the management review preparation. I doubt this will get done tomorrow as it will include year-end wrap-ups, 2013 goal-setting, review of lab performance based on documentation that may or may not be completed yet, and some progress reports. Let's just get it started. Of course the boss will not be in until next Tuesday so in the back of my mind I know nothing needs to be done or even worked on until that time. But fuck that...we are getting this shit done by the end of the week.

I also have a new guy coming in tomorrow to replace Trey in the part-time college student position (read: 18ish hours). We are trying to develop a relationship with Lonstar Montgomery where they offer up a young and motivated pool of budding scientists and we pluck one or two out for a semester to help out with lab odds and ends. Trey worked out really well so I hope this new guy does too. Personnel priority #1 will be handled if that happens. At the end of the year I had a good talk with the Johns regarding personnel issues I have and they prioritized them for me. There are 3...maybe 4. I would like to handle #3 ASAP but I have to handle 1 and 2 first of course. I am an impatient person. #2 will be handled in the coming weeks so I will take solace in that. Pretty ridiculous given the number of people in the lab. I look forward to having a stronger workforce around me by the end of the year.

An end of day push left me still not leaving work until after 5. This put me home after 6 at which point I vegged out. FAIL. But hey we got the blog done at least right?! Even if it is without the new year goals and intentions...they are coming I promise. You need them. I need them. Still somehow getting to bed late as well. AND I didn't workout at all. ARGH! What a way to kill the day...

By this time tomorrow I will have:
Been sleeping for an hour and a half.
Blogged
Started getting my budget planning together.
Started setting some goals for the year.
Finished cleaning the downstairs.
Worked out.
Worked a successful 8-9 hour day involving getting a new employee started, finishing monthly reports, and starting management review preparation.
Arrived to work before 8.
Completed a small morning warm-up.
Awoken to the alarm and not hit the snooze bar once.

Here's to hoping.