martinjy.com — Martin Young’s blog

Back to work

I’m back at work after my week off.

Last week I had almost five days to myself and no chores or work to do, which meant that I could do whatever I wanted. I found myself thinking about personal achievement, and formed plans to (in no particular order) become a better surfer, form closer bonds with my friends and renovate my house and garden in the coming year. That’s in addition to starting a family and spending as much time as possible with my wife.

What I didn’t do (at all) was think about my work life and goals. Today’s Tuesday, and so far it’s been disturbingly easy to slot back into the routine. The same old issues are still there … it’s almost as if last week didn’t happen (not surprising really, as it was only a week). So what I plan to do is change my approach to work a little bit. I’m not going to be able to set and achieve personal goals in the same way that I can at home, but I can come pretty close. I can push harder for truly quality outcomes rather than accepting mediocre ones due to time and resource constraints. If, in the immediate term, I devote time to tying up some loose ends, I can put more energy into innovation.

Today, when I look back at the last 12 months I see a bunch of achievements but nothing really stands out that I can really hang my hat on. That’s partly due to organisational circumstances that were beyond my control, but a piece of it is also down to my approach to my work and my career. That’s the bit I can change.

Last week Vaspers the Grate wrote a tongue-in-cheek list of reasons why a business shouldn’t blog. One of them is “… if it is totally satisfied with conducting Business As Usual (which generally leads to Business As Over).”.

Similarly, Seth Godin recently wrote that:

Most industries innovate from both ends:

• The outsiders go first because they have nothing to lose.
• The winners go next because they can afford to and they want to stay winners.
• It’s the mediocre middle that sits and waits and watches.

Those two insights sum it up for me. In October 08 want to be able to look back at this 12 months and know that I wasn’t one of the ones who sat and waited. It’s as simple as that.