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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, last Friday I finished reading my first book of the year, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share my perspective on putting out fires.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day is: A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a four foot tall child inside.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
I almost never schedule meetings before 10am. The first few hours of my day are important. They set the tone for my day, and are often the most uninterrupted and productive hours of my day. I also very rarely schedule meetings outside of my studio during the morning hours. Any meetings that take place outside of my studio are going to cause me to be away from my equipment and my computer, and I need to be near that stuff for the first half of my day.
You see, most podcast episodes are released in the morning so that listeners can have them available during their morning commute. So if there’s ever an issue that’s going to come up, it’s going to be in the morning. So if I’m going to be able to help my clients in those situations, I need to be available. Fortunately, this almost never happens. I have schedules and systems in place that work really well to keep all of my clients’ podcasts running smoothly.
Over the course of the last couple of weeks, my wife and I have been talking to a mortgage company about refinancing our home. Interest rates are incredibly low right now, and it looks like we’ll be able to save about $300 per month by refinancing. When the mortgage company called to set up an appointment, we set it up for Friday, a day that I don’t have any podcasts to release. We also set it up for 10am.
I still had a full day of projects to work on, but it was the best time to be away from the studio…or so I thought.
I woke up Friday morning and turned on my phone. I did a quick check of email and as my inbox pulled in messages that had come in overnight and early that morning, it was immediately clear that my Friday was not going to go the way I planned. There were 3 pretty immediate problems that needed my attention. I like to call these types of things fires that need to be put out.
The mortgage office is about a 30 minute drive from our house and I also had to shower, and get cleaned up before the meeting. This meant that I had about 90 minutes to put out the fires before I had to leave the house. I immediately knew that it was impossible to put out all three fires before I left. On top of that, I had some other things scheduled for the time before we had to leave.
My mind began to instantly flood with options and ideas. How would I proceed? I know I can’t do everything? Which ones will I choose? How will I work through this?
I quickly made a mental inventory of what I had to do. I then prioritized everything on the list. My clients are my top priority, so I first evaluated the three situations they were facing. I estimated that one of the fires could be completely put out in 30 minutes or less. I decided to go ahead and do that item first and get it completely off my list.
One of the other fires would take about 90 minutes to complete. I decided to put this in the third slot, which would be the first thing I would do when I returned from the mortgage meeting. I also made this decision based on the type of fire it was. It was a very high priority, but there were very little, if any, negative impact by having the fire put out before I left vs. after I got back.
This just leaves the third fire. I decided that it was very likely a fire that would need to be “fixed” and then monitored throughout the day. I also needed to enlist some insight from my contact at Apple. So once the first fire was out, I dug into the second fire. I spent about 30 minutes analyzing data and looking at various settings. I then took the information and passed it onto Apple, hoping I would have an answer by the time I got back from the mortgage meeting.
Once the email was sent I took a look at the clock and realized that I was going to be late for the mortgage meeting if I didn’t get into the shower immediately. I quickly shut everything down and scurried off to the bathroom.
If you’re like me, moments of clarity and insight often come while in the shower. I think it’s a combination of the white noise of the water, isolation of the shower chamber, and conducting a mindless activity that allows our brains to open up.
I walked into the shower a bit frazzled and discombobulated, but I soon realized that although my day didn’t start out like I expected, even though my day was off to a hectic start, even though I was under pressure to get all of the fires put out, this was not a bad day. No, this was a very good day.
Here’s what I learned.
No matter what job I’ve had, there have always been days that have taken an unexpected turn before my feet have ever hit the floor or I’ve even made it to the coffee pot. I’m quite certain that as long as I have breath in my lungs, there will be days like that.
But I am also quite certain that these days are not the bad days.
On Saturday my son and I had breakfast with some of the other guys from our church. I sat across from the pastor of our church, and at one point he and I started talking about how we handle unexpected situations. I told him that I’m a glass half full kind of guy, and that I believe our mental outlook on things determines at least half of the outcome.
That is, if we look at things in a negative way and have a poor attitude about them, then things will likely not go well and we’ll be miserable. On the other hand, if we look at things in a positive way and try to make the best of even the most difficult situations, the outcome will be much more positive. He agreed.
As I stood in the shower thinking over how my morning had started and thought about all that I still had to do that day, I was overcome with the realization that this was turning out to be a very good day.
You know what a bad day would have been? A bad day would have been one where I woke up and didn’t have any clients. A bad day would be one where my house payment was increasing by $300. A bad day would be one where no one needed my help with anything.
Was Friday a challenging day? Yes. Was Friday a hectic day? Yes. But Friday was far from a bad day. I realized that the very fact that I had multiple fires to put out was not a sign that my systems had failed or that I was irresponsible. Days will come when unexpected things happen. The reality was that the fires that I needed to put out where actually signs of life, growth, and even health.
And because of that, I am grateful for the fires.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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