Back in the late 90s I flew from San Jose, California to New York City to attend a trade show for work. My flight was in the evening and my boss had scheduled my annual performance review for 6 am the morning after the night I arrived at his hotel room.
Can I tell you, I was late for this. I mean, the freaking performance review was scheduled at a time of day when it was most likely for me to fail -- at 3 am by my body clock -- due to the 3 hour time difference between the east and west coast that I'd not been given any time at all to acclimate to.
My boss was annoyed that I was late for this meeting and told me during my review that I had a time management problem. This was the most negative thing that anyone had ever said to me during a performance review, and thus it has stuck with me for the last 10 years. My boss pointed out that my colleague and dear friend, who held the same position, had time to take cigarette breaks during the day. (Of course this sent my 3 month cigarette quit straight to hell).
(This is the same boss who would walk by my office and not say anything, just snap his fingers, to summon me to a meeting.) This boss is long gone from my life, BTW.
But being labeled this way had the effect of perpetuating this so-called problem I had. For example, my boss sent me to a time management seminar. I was an hour late to this one. (My cat, who needed antibiotics twice a day after a tooth extraction, didn't want them and hid under the bed for a half an hour. And then I was so late that I didn't take the time to look up the proper directions to the location of the seminar. Sigh. I was a big joke when I arrived so late for the freaking thing.)
Another encounter with this boss: I told him that I needed more time to complete a specific task so could he please move the Tuesday meeting to a half hour later? (I had double the work my colleagues had in regard to this particular task.) He, of course, thought I was blowing smoke. That is until one day when I had an out of office meeting and he had to fill in for me, completing the task on my behalf. That very day he permanently changed the meeting to a half hour later so there would be enough time for me to finish. The only thing that worked on him was letting him experience the challenge himself, because he didn't ever listen to what I had to say. But I digress.
So whenever I think about something I'm feeling guilty about, even today, I have a tendency to attribute it to my so-called time management problem. For example, catching up on everyone's blogs that I've fallen behind on as I did three business trips in the last two weeks. I feel terrible about it and feel as if it is a personal failing, rather than giving myself a break because I have been working at such a crazy pace since the beginning of the month.
Anyway, in case you haven't heard back from me on emails or your most excellent blog posts, in case you get an email response two weeks after you sent an email to me, please forgive me. It is my chronic time management problem rearing its ugly head again.
I'm amazed at your schedule. Don't worry about not reading blogs or commenting. You'll catch up.
There is a difference between having to much to do and too little time to finish it vs. a time management problem. Go easy on yourself. XX
Posted by: Aurelia | May 21, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Hey, and reading blogs and commenting isn't exactly a requirement. You've got other things that are required! Like Aurelia said, go easy on yourself.
Posted by: maggie | May 21, 2007 at 01:46 PM
I hate the way those kinds of comments have lives of their own. It's like bosses need to say SOMETHING bad about you, so they seize on something minor, and before you know it you're attending training seminars and goodness knows what else. Well done for persevering with your 'problem' for the last 10 years!
Posted by: thalia | May 21, 2007 at 02:57 PM
Time management problem my ass. Aa much as you do you clearly have no such issue.
Blogging shouldn't be homework; do what you enjoy.
Posted by: Eva | May 21, 2007 at 07:56 PM