link to Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Having completed Chapter 1, you 'got present' and you rated how you feel about your work-situation. 

That's an important first step. You took a time out. You allowed your mind to step away from its busy day and you focused on your feelings about work. Consciously, or unconsciously, you weighed your work against other important aspects of your life including your health and your family. Consciously, or unconsciously, you also weighed your work-situation relative to your work-goals, your financial needs, and other needs and desires important to you. 

These other important aspects will be dealt with later in this book. For the time being, it is important to concentrate solely on your feelings about your work-situation. In the last chapter, you rated your feelings. As you did that you determined the general nature of your feelings. You chose either Plus or Minus or, perhaps, you chose Ho-hum.

The next step is to consider the range of feelings you have experienced about your work-situation. Think about your workdays during the last year or two. During that period, if you are like most people, you have had terrific days, good days, ho-hum days, not-so-good days, and terrible days. Perhaps, you would rate a few of those days as Plus10 days or Minus10 days...think of those as extreme days.  

For this second step...

The goal is - to define the range of the feelings you normally and regularly have about your work-situation. If you have only had a few extreme days during the last year or two then, for the time being, ignore them. If you have experienced extreme days on a frequent basis then include them.

Using the Minus10-to-Plus10 Scale...

What is the normal range of your feelings about your work-situation?

As you answer this question, test your thoughts. Take some time to think about how your 'getting present' rating from Chapter 1 fits within the range you just defined. Does the fit between the low end of your range, your getting-present rating, and the high end of your range make sense to you? Make sure the range accurately describes the feelings you regularly experience about your work-situation.

Thought Tweet #482 Good things come in little packages: that's the key to excellent work-process success.

The Thinking Behind The Tweet

Dr. Richard Carlson taught - "Don't sweat the small stuff".

That's good advice as long as it confined within the following context: (1) do small stuff and do it well & (2) don't feel distressed while you are doing it. There's nothing wrong with sweating while working out the body....although perspiration is a more-delicate word for that body exhaust. When the body works hard it sweats. When the mind works hard it also vents exhaust. This is particularly so when the mind is undisciplined. When we break work into small pieces we reduce the amount of that exhaust. And, of more importance, we increase the opportunities to receive [mental, self-generated] rewards for jobs well done.

Thought Tweet #481 There's wisdom in the old adage, 'Do One Thing at a Time'...especially, if you do that one thing well.

The Thinking Behind The Tweet

Most brain experts will tell you it is impossible to think about more than one thing at a time. So, really, when we are multitasking the neuronal circuits in our brains are flipping switches back and forth and up and down, on then off then back on, etc. While all this is happening our brains don't lend their full power to any single task. This, of course, is part of our natural human condition. Our brains naturally multitask; consciously and unconsciously our brains sense and process vast amounts of stimuli. This allows us to accomplish many things more or less at the same time. Regardless, if we want to do any single task as well as we can then we need to concentrate on it.