Tag: email

  • Reclaiming Weekends

    This weekend I am not checking my work e-mail.

    Ah, work.

    I love my job. Maybe I love it a bit too much?

    When I first started at YS I was pretty good about balance. I limited my availability. I worked from home at least one day per week. Weekends became sacred time again. And I did a lot more little things to set me on a healthy path.

    Then last February that all changed. Some positions were eliminated and we were put in a meat grinder position of turning the company around financially. Without being asked to do so I took ownership of that– “I’m going to do my part.” and all that healthy balance went out the window.

    The other day Tic and I were chatting about this being a reset point for our lives. Sure, there is infinite work to be done. But if we don’t pace ourselves the workload will destroy us. He said something along the lines of… “If I’m not at a convention or something I’m fully aware that I’m not that important. I don’t need to be reached all the time.” That really resonated to me. It kind of cut to the quick of the issue. Like Marko has talked about on his blog, I have an unhealthy tendency to attach my significance to the world by what I do instead of who I am to the most important people in my life.

    And so Tic and I are trying something. It feels like a big step. In reality, it’s a baby step. But we want to start off with one little victory before trying to add more. On Friday we both set out-of-office messages that just said, “I’m not available over the weekend.” And we’re both going to try really hard to ignore work stuff for the weekend. And we’re going to catch-up on Tuesday to see how it went. (Starting on a three day weekend is asking too much, so we just want to make it Friday at 5pm until Monday morning.)

    There is lots to do. In fact, there is tons to do. Far more than I can fit into a work week. But I’m just not that important. The world will continue to spin. Projects will wait. I don’t need to work night and day and weekends, too.

    The fact that I have 43 unopened e-mails on my work account is driving me crazy! And knowing that that number will be about 200 by Monday morning is tough to deal with. But the truth is simple. I’m not that important to the world. The fact that 43 unopened emails are driving me crazy reveals the true depth of the problem, too.

    I am really important to my family.

    I desire to be fully present. I need to work on that. I’m trying.

    Crap. 47 emails.

    I need to stop looking.

  • Are blogs a voice to extremism?

    For all the good social media, blogging, and other technology does for us this is a good reminder that some are out of control. Seriously, if you blog, twitter, post notes to Facebook, write on Myspace, whatever: Make sure you have some friends who can check you. If you need some guidelines, here are my rules.

    Random sidenote: I think this is the first time I’ve watched something from Fox News in more than a year. I get my news from the internets.

    HT to Mark Riddle

  • Signs of Health

    workinprogressmalletI’ve been open about my struggles to find a healthy work pace. I’m not sure why but I have an innate tendency to want to be plugged into work 24/7. This isn’t new… I’ve been this way since high school. I remember stopping in on the little restaurant I worked at on my nights off just to see how things were going. That habit has pretty much continued up through today! I always want to know how things are going.

    Full time ministry just made it worse. After all, checking email or making a phone call to a student on your day off is ministry and how can that be bad? Jesus wouldn’t want them to have to wait… would he? With all due respect, the staff at the church just loved the fact that Adam was always available, always game, always willing to answer the call. My work in churches took some horrible tendencies and labeled them as reliable.

    When I started at YS a year ago I dealt with a bit of culture shock. I would send e-mails on Friday night that wouldn’t get read until Monday. I would stay late and have co-workers tell me to go home. I’d respond to emails at 10 or 11 PM and get made fun of. It was actually frustrating at first. It took me some time to recognize that I wasn’t seeing a lack of dedication… I was encountering healthy work habits.

    It’s taken me a long time to begin to break some of these habits. It’s taken this long to wake up to the reality that it was me who needed to change my habits. In the past few months I’ve thought a ton about the idea of sustainability and pace. Reality is that I have a natural tendency to want to increase the pace at the cost of my personal health and the relationships with my family. The pace at which I desire to work simply isn’t sustainable. In the past few months I’ve constantly been telling myself, “Slow down.”

    The last two weekends have been great signs of health.

    – Never checked work email.

    – No responding to Facebook messages that were work related.

    – Didn’t check up on all of the websites, stats, numbers… OK, I did that once or twice. (Dangit!)

    – Spent excessive amounts of time with family and friends.

    – Said “no” to things that were outside of my goals/responsibilities right now.

    – Was not the first one to arrive nor the last one to leave the office at all last week.

    I still have a long, long way to go in establishing healthy and sustainable habits. But these are signs of health. It’s like after you start working out… it takes a few weeks until you start to feel the difference. And I hope the people in my life who are most important are starting to feel the difference.

    What about you? What are some boundaries you have established that help you have a sustainable work pace?

  • A Few Ways to Connect with Me

    Maybe you’re ready to take this relationship to the next level? Let’s say you come to Adam McLane’s site every day. And you’re thinking to yourself… “Adam, I dig what you have to say. What are some ways you can check out what else I do online?” Here are a few ways I suggest you do that.

    #1 Subscribe to my RSS feed. This will make sure you get every post delivered to your RSS reader, iGoogle homepage, or even by email.

    #2 Subscribe to the YS Podcast. You’ll see my pretty face each week on the weekly show that I host. Sure, it isn’t much… but it’s just enough Adam McLane to not feel like a total stalker. Don’t use iTunes? Subscribe via YouTube.

    #3 Join my delicious network. Now we’re getting serious. (Rounding 2nd base!) Each day I bookmark all sorts of things. Blog posts, news stories, adolescent research studies, new websites, and all manner of web goodness. Like the links in the YS newsletters? This is like the full monty of that.

    #4 Check out my shared items on Google Reader. These are blogs that I read on a daily basis and posts that I think are worth sharing. In other words, let me filter through the lame stuff for you.

    #5 Follow me on Twitter. If you’re curious what I’m up to 10-20 times per day, I post to this micro-blogging site in 140 characters or less.

    #6 Be my friend on Facebook. You won’t find me on Myspace anymore. I haven’t deleted my account, but I never ever go there. You will find me a lot on Facebook. Me likey Facebook.

    #7 Of course you can get to know Kristen too. It’s like getting to know our family 360 degrees. Kristen blogs a lot about family life, recipes, contests, and kids books.

    #8 Check out some of our new projects. Kristen and I have started some projects under the umbrella of McLane Creative. Our first project is a collaborative site giving real-world reviews of things to do in San Diego, called Beyond the Zoo.

    #9 Meet me in person. I know, that’s not a Web 2.0 way to get to know me. (What is wrong with me?) But it’s completely practical. If you’re ever in the San Diego area I’d love to get together for a cup of coffee and meet face-to-face. Drop me an email.