Time Saving Tip #1

Save time by keeping sheets and like linens together. When you take sheets and pillow cases out of the dryer place all matching sheets, fitted sheets, and all matching pillowcases inside of one pillowcase.  Next time you are ready to put new sheets on the bed they will be together

The Official Web Site Coming Soon!

We are hard at work getting the official Corporate Genie site up! Stay tuned. In the meantime we may just put up a temporary site just to get the ball rolling. I have been getting feedback… People are anxious.

You laid off your admin… hire a Virtual Assistant

This morning I received my daily business headlines email and if I wasn’t such a positive guy I would have probably thrown myself down the stairs because of all the negative headlines about mass company layoffs. I started to wonder a bit what positions at these places were being eliminated and how the decisions were made. I have no clue how those decisions are made. Sometimes the big shots get the ax and others they chop the little guy.

Of course my assumption is the little guy gets the short end of this stick. I started to think about the administrative assistants or other more administrative positions. They are very valuable people in a company. I once worked in an office where everyone relied very heavily on the work that the administrative assistant took care of. After all, they didn’t have time to do some of that stuff but it was just as important to get finished.

So from that revelation I decided to add a new service to Corporate Genie. Virtual Assistants. If your company has laid off an administrative role, the best bet is to replace that valuable effort with a virtual assistant. Hiring a virtual assistant are less expensive than hiring an actual employee and there are so many other benefits. More to come. Stay tuned

Can Balance in Life Actually Be Achieved?

I recently read a post from Shaun King who has a blog called Shaun In The City. He wrote a post called “The Myth of Balance” where he talks about the rarity and even seemingly impossibility of achieving balance in life. I believe that it is a rarity but only because people fail to implement the choices that lead to working towards that type of balance. I was going to respond to Shaun in his comments but my comments were too long. Please check out Shaun’s post here. Be sure to subscribe to Shaun’s post. He is doing great things in the Atlanta area and has a great blog that I follow.

Here is my response to Shaun:

Shaun –

 

You have to be careful not to confuse balance with being busy. There is nothing wrong with having a full schedule… it sure beats being idle that’s for sure. You are right about one thing. Life is constantly in flux. Things rarely stay the same but if there is proper balance those changes would not wreck the world of the people who experience them.

 

I believe a sense of balance can be obtained. Of course we are busy and we have to spend time with our wives and kids, and work on our careers and business ventures, and participate in ministry. And on top of all that we have no excuse to neglect one at the expense of another. I know my wife doesn’t want to hear that my mismanagement of time is eating into her time. And a man can never make the excuse that he didn’t have time to pray because he had to spend time with his wife. Every person has an equal amount of time in their day. We all get 24 hours. So the “magic” word when it comes to balance is PRIORITY.

 

Shaun, I agree with you to an extent that balance is a journey. But I think better than that balance is a lifestyle. And you’re right, people should never feel less for having a hectic life, but they should consider that it doesn’t have to be chaotic. You brought up a great champion of balance actually when you mention Jesus. Watching Jesus actually shows how to work towards a lifestyle of balance. He demonstrated it everyday.

 

1. He Made Time: He woke up a great while before day to get apart to pray. (Mark1:35). He viewed that as a priority and made the time to do it. Sort of like those people who say “I don’t have time to spend with the kids, or I don’t have time to work out.” You make time for things that are a priority.
2. He Didn’t Allow An Abundance of Things to Dictate His Schedule: Jesus Submitted His Schedule To God. And that probably happened during prayer time. There are a lot of opportunities I have especially since I am starting a business right now and working, and living life with intentionality with my wife and family. But in times of prayer is where I can submit my schedule to God to let him tell me which things to get involved in and which not. Acknowledging him and let him direct my path. Jesus said himself, “I only do what the Father tells me to do.” Following His leading will eliminate a lot of wasted time, money and energy.
3. Jesus Delegated: Jesus walked around with 12 guys that each had their part in the work that Jesus did. A lot of times we are afraid to delegate in order to work towards that balance. We feel that “if you want it done right, do it yourself.” You see Jesus in the scriptures delegating often and instructing his disciples in situations. You see him sending his disciples away to get food so he can chill out by a well (John 4:8), among other things. Even the Apostle Paul and the early disciples delegating certain duties (Acts 6:1-5).
4. Jesus Realized Some Things Are Needful and that we have to choose those things. Sometimes being overly occupied is not right for the time. You see Jesus reprimanding Martha because she is spending too much time being “busy” instead of taking time for what he calls the “needful things.” 

So I think a sense of balance can be work towards as a lifestyle and when things are getting to a point of being too stressful we need to sit back and consider is everything on our plates worth it or are we just thinking we are getting much done. It’s very much like Jenga, there are moving parts and the whole thing is constantly swaying but at times there is balance, and it is only when that balance is messed with that the whole thing comes crashing down.

 

Enjoying A Day of Celebration

Today we celebrated the inauguration of our new president Barack Obama. You know that I am a great fan of taking time to spend time with family for moments that are important. What did you do with your family today?

Me, "Barack" and my wife

My wife and I celebrated at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. There were about 5000 people in attendance and it was just as electric and exciting

Obama: ‘No Idle Hands’

I was watching CNN this morning, which I tend to do and saw President Elect Obama visiting a homeless shelter for teens. The teens were painting the walls of the shelter and the incoming president was having a conversation with the boys and made this statement.

‘No Idle Hands’ afterwhich he picked up the rolling brush and started painting the walls. He was dressed in a pair of grayish-black jeans and a button up white shirt. Although I probably would have personally put a jacket or something on top of the white shirt, he jumped right in and stated “everybody’s got to pitch in.”

That is quite a mantra that we need to adopt in our everyday life.

“No idle hands and everybody has got to pitch in.”

This is a sure fire way to get things done in a shorter time frame. And on top of all that… many hands make work easy.

The President is already getting us right to a good start

Obama: No idle hands

Back to my basics

I have gotten off track. The point of this particular blog was to show you three things

1. Information on Life-Work Balance

2. Time Saving Tips

3. How to Live Life with Intentionality

So I have decided to go back to the basics and create a personal blog for my rants called Davidisms.

So for now on, this blog will be of value, the other is for soapbox issues

381 Days of Walking to Work…

 

I used to work with a woman a few years ago who challenged me and I quote, “Don’t leave the day dumber than you came in.” And from that day to this I really try to hold to that advice. So let me tell you what I learned today.

While taking the commute yesterday morning I was listening to a radio station play clips of Dr. Martin Luther King in interviews and speeches. In one particular interview he mentioned that the bus boycott that Rosa Parks helped to set off lasted 381 days. Wow 381 days. In all my years of knowing about this incident in history, I had no idea that 50,000 blacks and whites supporting the cause for justice walked or carpooled to work for over a year! In my mind I saw it like the boycotts of today- just lasted a few days or weeks at which point somebody or everybody would cave in.

Can you imagine? I thought that was truly a lesson in committing to a cause or effort and really sticking to it until the thing that is desired is realized. And I am speaking from both sides of the issue. Both the civil rights participants and those opposing stood their ground for over a year.

Quite a lesson on Martin Luther King’s birthday. I learned something new. To stay committed to what you are working towards no matter how long it takes.

Hey Boss – I am going to help the company by doing less

Tomorrow I think I’m going to go into the office and knock on my boss’s door and tell her that I have found a mutual solution to giving the company the best work possible and at the same time not get stressed in the process. Of course she will lean forward in her chair mouth salivating with the idea of my increased productivity and making her look good to her boss. (Never mind my own sanity)

Then I will tell her how: I am going to do more by doing less.

She’s going to light up with glee and then tell me that is the best idea that she has ever heard and then she will tell me to immediately draft a memo for everyone else in the company to do the same thing.

Now back to reality. Chances are she will not be so excited by my solution but fact of the matter is that she should be. Face it. We have a lot going on right now. A whole lot. I don’t know about you but at the end of last year I had to look back and realize that I missed it because I was so busy doing stuff.  Granted, most of the “stuff” is somewhat necessary, particularly at work, but the busier we are the more watered down or efforts become. So doing less will likely help to be more focused on the task at hand and keep our sanity.

I frequently read Leo Babauta’s blog Zen Habits. He has an excellent philosphy on this “doing less”. Check out his tips on The Essential Time Saving Guide for Busy People

No Cell Phones = Lost Productivity

Yesterday while watching the news I heard that the National Safety Council was calling for a nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving citing that talking on the phone is extremely dangerous and puts drivers at a four time greater risk of a crash. When I heard that it it didn’t really register with me because it we get so used to people’s studies saying that everything is dangerous.

But then I started watching the show 24, it clicked to me when I saw that everywhere that Jack Bauer went he had his ear glued to a cell phone.  It hit me! Yes, it’s sad that I had this epiphany while watching 24, but what can I say- the show is enlightening. I realized that a great deal of us do a lot of multi-tasking while driving. Most of the work that we do, or the errands that we run can be handled with phone calls. With every company passing out Crack… er Blackberry phones like they are lollipops, it would be a huge productivity loss if many of these people aren’t able to handle some business while on the road.

If there are any personal or corporate concierges out there like me, they can also attest to the fact that huge amounts of what they do for a living is taken care of on the phone while making the transfer from one errand destination to the next. It would be hurtful to that business entirely.

I think I forgot to mention this earlier… they are talking about a total ban meaning you couldn’t even use your ear piece or hands free devices. The coucil says that even hands free devices don’t make it any safer. Now I am all for safety and usually recognize that person swerving on the road is probably on the phone or trying to text… but hands-free device bans? That seems absurd. What is the difference between that and having someone else in the car. Next they will want everybody to ride alone. Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion.