Category Archives: Uncategorised

The End-Decembertide & New Year Roast Toast

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Happy New Year! It’s been a while.

And so we begin again for another 12 months into what the optimists call 2018 and what the pessimists are worried might be the final chapter. Whichever way it swings, having some time off has allowed me to look back on running this and other sites for a year and reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Not just for you reading, but for me writing, for my lifestyle and general outlook.

Many things happened in 2017 to us all that changed the face of everything for us. Some great, some not so great (depending on your view) which shrouded opinion on whether it beat 2016 or not. But in such a divided crowd, is it worth deciding if 2018 will be the as good, or shall we all take the action as if the next year will be our last. Let’s take on our shoulds and our woulds and coulds and turn them into not just will but do.

Do you want to start a new adventure? get planning and do it. Got something you want to shout about? you draft it out and post it.

Of course I’m not saying blindly dive into something, remember still to look before you leap (after all you don’t want to cause a covfefe 😉 ) . But after seeing and indeed experiencing many new year’s resolutions failing within the first few hours or days of 2018 as people plan but don’t act, I think this year should be the year of will do for those procrastinators and nervous waiters like me.

So with that said from me, expect good service to resume this month, some with a new twist, some back to normal.

What big plans do you have for 2018? If you want some inspiration, I highly recommend this video of rather sage advice from popular YouTuber jacksepticeye.

31,536,000 seconds and counting down. What’s it going to be? A strive to beat 2017? A continuation of sucess into 2018? Or just the chance to answer the knock of opportunity and make 2018 great from the beginning.

Here’s to a new beginning, Happy New Year everyone!

Mike

A Day of Splendour

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This last week has led up to a very kind offer of a ticket to Nottingham’s annual Family Festival, Splendour. Roughly 12 hours of bands across 3 stages, a stage of comedy, a dinosaur exhibit, a silent disco and a circus act – all in Batman’s backyard.

It wasn’t the driest of festivals with several hours of rain washing a few people out, but it really helped test determination. As many crowds left over the hours into the evening, a number stayed on, waiting for that big moment to see Black Grape, Busted, Billy Ocean and finally the Kaiser Chiefs.

It’s determination like this that gives some drive in life. The drive to move forward, to stay focused, to achieve. When the rain comes, it can be very easy to walk to shelter at the risk of seeing the reward you came for. But if you know what can protect you and support you, sometimes it’s easy to bounce that rain off and around you and keep you dry (or drier) until the storm passes. It’s really powerful concept when you think about it and is sometimes the ideal way to motivate you to carry on when when you really don’t feel like you can.

When you can get past that hump and become numb to the things around you, it becomes easier to enjoy the moment and let that infectious joy spread to those around you

Have a great week everyone

Mike

Off and On

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Well, it seems we have week 3 of disasters this time with the failures at Heathrow. It really resonates with what I mentioned in my post on WAVE Media on Wednesday. There should always be a backup. Be that a plan, another resource, a saved copy of your stuff in case the worst happens.

I can’t say I’m perfect at keeping things safe and backed up, but where I can I make the effort. My camera photos are saved to an SD card and backed up to Dropbox and subsequently my laptop. So are my WhatsApp messages to Google Drive. Many of my work files are backed up automatically by our IT Department as a blanket “Snapshot” of each NAS drive (personal documents, personal desktop, corporate share) every hour and kept for up to 3 days. Even this website and it’s sister sites are backed up a couple of times a day and I try to ensure if I’m at home or out and about I’ve got a couple of sources of internet available in case one fails and another phone in reach if mine goes out of signal/range and I need to contact someone.

When it comes to non digital stuff, I try to keep a plan for things too. Like pulling in resources over the weekend after the cyber attack happened to ensure the centres would be able to be up and running at work – which thankfully weren’t needed with our IT Department enacting their own.

Things in this world do sometimes go wrong and so long as you have a plan and you know how to get up and running again as soon as possible and if not at all, what you can do in the meantime, things can usually get back to business pretty quickly. In BA’s case, a backup supply would have really helped. Would it be possible? Who knows until more facts come in. Here’s hoping next weekend won’t fail us.

Take care everyone,

Mike

Waiting

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Sorry for the delays in posting in the week, it’s been busy. Busy busy busy. Well, sort of.

It would have been a productive week if it wasn’t filled with chase up emails, calls and patience being pushed (I of course realise the hyposcrisy of making you wait an extra day for my rambilings 😉 )

When it comes to things not progressing – especially when you you’re relying on other people, frustration and stress can be on the rise – esepcially when others are asking you what the hold up is. But before you blow your top, ask yourself these three questions:

  1. Is there anyrthing you can do to help change the process or influence the forward progress?
  2. Is the person or party you’ve asked for help not congested with higher priorities?
  3. If you’re stuck with resistance, have you reached out to higher powers to help?

If you can’t answer any of the above questions justifiably then it might be worth investigating, if anything, to cover your back.

Whilst you must be assertive when chasing up to ensure your message gets across, don’t forget to be a little polite, nobody likes assumptions or being compared to a metaphonical donkey or orifice in the rear southern regions! After all, should the person you’re asking be a ‘yes’ in question two above or indeed be waiting on somebody else in order to get their job done, you don’t want to end up making them feel like the akward middle child in your argument.

Thankfully in most organised societies people have a productive task system and methods of communication, whether that be platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Basecamp, or Wrike or through more traditional means such as regular meetings with the secreatary that calls up or emails now and again to find out where everybody is up to.

However you need to get out of your rut, don’t make the mistake some make by just letting it roll, because before you know it you’ll see this post in the feed again next week and realise you’re still no further when there may well have been an opportunity to move ahead.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone and keep moving forward!

 

Mike

Complications & Interruptions

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That’s apparently what life is filled with according to Christmas film Love Actually, and they’re not kidding.

Sometimes you’ll have a great week, sometimes things get in the way. When the plan changes at the last minute, what do you do? And what do you do if this keeps reoccurring? 

These are questions I’ve asked myself several times over the last few months when I’ve had a short list of things to do on Monday morning and left on a Friday afternoon lucky to have maybe started one and done several things that weren’t on the list in the first place (or indeed my job to do sometimes).

I can only apologise for a lack of blog posts this week too due to connectivity issues and no other time than the evening to do the work.

The lessons I’ve learned as a take away from this is to always have a backup plan, to follow the 3 Ps I talked about last week like a life mantra and to accept that sometimes you may well have your route planned, but roads close and queues happen, it’s where you plan to go next that you should just keep your focus on and before you know it you can divert yourself back to where you need to be, just like the blogs will be next week. 

Mike