Finally, I'm not dropping plates anymore

I remeber as a kid watching the Mike Douglas Show, or the Merv Griffin Show (Yes, I am that old), and always being amazed at the talent they would bring on as time killers. This has been modernized through Letterman's Stupid human tricks... so the fascination still applies.

In my twenty years of corporate living, one of these acts has stuck with me - the spinning plates act, where the talent starts plates spinning on a rod, with the idea that centrifigal force (or is it centripedal, I can't remember which one applies!) keeps the plates moving as long as they are spinnign at a high enough velocity.

Over the last two months, I feel like I have been spending so much of my energy at work, running from plate (project) to plate (task), keeping them spinning at a minimal velocity to stop them from crashing down. Never able to stop long enough to put a good effort, becasue I see others wobbling on the verge of crashing to the stage. This required me to revisit the plates more often, running back and forth across the stage like a crazy person. Intellectually, I knew that I should pause long enough to give the task the investment in energy it really needed to be more self sufficient. But I couldn't translate that into behavior. I must admit I dropped a few plates, but it happened in the back so not many people in the audience noticed...

Being on the road 90% of my time in May was the main reason for this, but that's a really lame excuse, because I spent more time sitting in my hotel room, reading a book, surfing the tube, or taking stupid facebook quizzes. So, no one to blame but myself.

Now that I am off the road, I hope to change and put the time in to spin the right plates at the right time, so I am not dashing around like a nut. We'll see - I know I feed off of adrenaline in these situations, and that's a hard habit to kick - especially if you've been working on it for 20 years! We'll see how the summer plays out....