From my earliest days as a student in elementary school, I remember valuing strong leaders.

People who lead with integrity and passion, who communicate well and share their vision always capture my attention.  I have been fortunate to have been directly influenced by such people.  As I have mentioned before, a few of these have been strong female role leaders, from my mom to coworkers I currently know.  However, I have been blessed to know a few really great male leaders as well, and regardless of gender, leadership in organizations fills a gap that nothing else can.

My husband is a great leader.  He has been in management for over ten years, and he’s a bit of a dark horse from the perspective of his peers.  He is a determined and productive person.  He makes it his business to know every aspect of the business he is in, to not only be proficient but a subject matter expert.  He speaks his mind, he doesn’t kiss anyone’s ass, and he will do the right thing, guaranteed.

More than that, the people he leads have trust in him.  They look to his example and live up to his expectations.  Even when he has had to be the bearer of bad news or give someone very difficult feedback, they never lose their respect for him.  He treats people with dignity and respect, and at the same time has a personable approach and just says things as they are.  He shares with them the vision he has, and they rise up to meet the challenge.  That is leadership – and I am proud of him!

I have also worked where a leadership vacuum has emerged.  Nothing sucks the life out of you at work the way it does when there is a gaping void where a good leader should be.  There is no sense of direction, no meaningful purpose and morale plummets.  It’s very unfortunate.

Working in large organizations, such as where I work, strong leaders are needed at every level and with diverse styles to ensure that the needs of the organization and the employees are being met.  It is frustrating to witness some leaders stepping up while other who should be acting as leaders retreat, backing away from the responsibility they have taken. 

And it’s obvious to see who suffers when there is a leadership vacuum.  It is in the unengaged faces of the people you pass in the hallway.  It is the blank spaces on the volunteer lists for employee engagement events.  It is the lack of interest in any company-wide initiative, whether it is work related or for fun.  It is in the general disinterest expressed by employees when asked to learn something new.  It is obvious in the faces of every employee, that despite the lack luster leadership, they are still expected to rise to the occasion and perform.

It makes me appreciative of the times where I have had great leaders, and that at least in my own circle I am so fortunate to have the influence of other strong leaders.  It also makes me want to do what I can for my team, to pull them up and help them want to do more and be more – to be enthusiastic! 

Based on the recommendation of my sister, I checked out the CNN Original Series: The Sixties on Netflix over the past week.  I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend.

Over the course of about ten episodes, the series goes into many of the topics and changes that occurred during that decade.  Spanning the cultural, political and technological changes, they touch on subjects like the JFK assignation, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the space race, the British invasion, and the tragic events that spanned the year of 1968.

While I am a self-declared history buff, I admit that I have not been that educated about the modern decades of American history.  My head is usually stuck much further into history than that.  And while the topics I listed above are not unfamiliar, I learned something new and interesting in every episode.

The series’ footage is original to its time.  It was stunning to me, not to mention hilarious, to watch news anchors and talk show hosts on TV smoking cigarettes.  During the episode about the infiltration of TVs into American homes, they delved into some of the amazing cultural shifts that took place because of it.  The first televised presidential debate was discussed, the first women who starred in their own shows, and even the first physical encounters between interracial couples occurring on TV and the response to it. 

Entire episodes were dedicated to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., discussing their impact on American culture and the tragedies that befell them.  The footage provided plenty of fodder, as well, to fuel my inclination for conspiracy theories!

It was very well done and showed both sides of the scenarios; the push for cultural change and the resistance to it.  It was amazing to discover that as recently as 20 years before I was born, women could not get a bank account in their own name.  It was eye opening to see how far certain civil liberties have come for women and minorities.  It was also sad, in other ways, to see a decline taking place in the culture and the values of society. 

What was also interesting and troubling was to see so many current politicians active at that time, depicting a real need for term limits!  But to offset this egregious fact was seeing everyone in their younger days; the almost child-like face of Sally Field, a young Dan Rather at the news desk, and a terribly young and handsome Ralph Nader!

Whether you’re a history buff, a fan of trivia, or just a curious spectator of American culture, this series has something for everyone.  I have moved on to The Seventies now and hope to find it as enjoyable as the previous series.

I read this article yesterday as I was scanning through my Google cards, and I couldn’t agree more!

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that my phone seemed to be alerting me to a lot of things I don’t care about.  New e-books for sale on Kindle that I am not interested in, new products on Amazon that I have never searched for, new music I don’t care about, and more.  And this is without any social media apps on my phone!

I finally figured out how to turn most of them off.  I prefer when my phone is quiet.

I tend not to ignore text messages.  Most of my texts come from family members and while most of it is our normal hilarious jibber jabber, I like to make sure I am available to stay in tune with them if I am needed.  Most of my friends message me on a separate app that I always keep silent.  And I am overjoyed if my phone goes a week without ever ringing (even though I have the wonderful Toccata and Fugue in D minor as my ring tone!).

What this article says is true.  The person who wants you checking your phone even more than you do are all of the services that want to sell you something.  Amazon wants you on their app because then you’re likely to buy something.  Same with most every other app; my understanding is that now even Facebook and Instagram are very ad heavy.

I hate ads.  I would always rather pay for a service than see ads.  It is part of why I canceled my cable.  I am sick of spending 9 out of every 30 minutes watching an ad.  I prefer watching a 22-minute episode of any show uninterrupted.  Same with websites I use.  I play Pogo games with a friend and love my paid Club subscription to avoid seeing any ads.

We let ads pervade our lives.  I remember in economics in high school, they talked about how many ads the average person sees in a day.  It was staggering!  And that was a long time ago.  Now, we see even more.  On the sides of the roads, on the radio, every website we visit, on all of our apps, during our television shows.  I have had enough!

Some things we simply cannot control.  But I am with the guy in this article.  I will quiet them in my life so far as I am able by disabling the push notifications.  By keeping cable advertising out of my home.  Every time we turn around someone is trying to sell us something.  Well, as Steve Martin declares in Father of the Bride, “George Banks is saying no!”

I quit social media earlier this year.  I had quit in the past as well, but got lured back at some point and definitely wasn’t finding it satisfying or worth the time I was spending on it.  So earlier this year, one by one, I began cutting myself off of all of my social media. 

The first benefit I have found is that my phone has fewer issues and I can get through the entire day without charging it.  This is no doubt partly due to not being on my phone as often, but also the lack of apps running in the background.  I often listen to audiobooks throughout the day and my phone is still usually over 40% battery life when I get home at the end of the day.

The second benefit, of course, is my free time has increased and has been reinvested into things that are more important to me.  I spend that time writing, reading or pursuing other goals on my Day Zero Project list.  I am less distracted by my phone when working, exercising or reading.  It is way better especially at bed time, when I do one last sync on my Fitbit and then close it out and go to bed.  No more random scrolling through a newsfeed that offers very little of interest to me.

But the most important benefit I have found in the increase in positive communication that I have had with others.  Instead of communicating through comments on photos of status updates or a photo on Instagram, I am communicating with friends via email – which nowadays actually seems old school!  And best of all, my time spent with my husband or my family is more meaningful because I am undistracted by my phone. 

It’s unfortunate that we live in a time when most people get their news from a meme or a news feed on social media, when who knows how accurate this second-hand information may be.  I enjoy reading the news every morning, going through the stories and getting caught up on all of the world news from direct sources, written with reasonable coherence and without the commentary of people fighting from all sides.

We also live in a time where people are so ingrained to communicate in what will fit in a Tweet or a text that they have lost the spirit of true communication.  I feel so fortunate that even my frivolous teenage socialization between classes was not via text, but rather in long notes, handwritten in complete sentences. 

I was reminiscing just this week about when I met my husband.  We met online in 2000, and I didn’t even have internet access at home on my personal computer.  Over the course of that summer, I walked 2 miles every morning to the library to check my email where he had sent me a long missive, letting me slowly learn details about him, and let me peek into his world.  I would read it eagerly and reply, and then walk back home, knowing that at some point in the day he would read and reply and the next morning I would do it all over again.  Over that summer, we wrote long communications to one another, getting to know so much, and not in a rush of instant messages all in one day but over the course of several months.  It is such sweet nostalgia to remember that; the agony when we went several days out of touch but the excitement to hear from him once again, or sometimes even receiving a hand written letter in the mail that I could cherish!

I think more and more people are making the move away from social media and back to more traditional and satisfying ways of communicating, and I can say I have no regrets about making the move myself.

Everyone has their own methods of winding down or relaxing.  In fact, some people seem to be experts at relaxation!  I have never really put a high level of priority on down time.  My husband has often joked that I never sit still.  I’m always doing something, keeping busy.

However, I do aim to get 7 hours of sleep every day, which is probably high for adults.  But when my alarm rings in the morning, I bounce out of bed, ready to go.  I am rarely sedentary for more than 20 minutes at a time all day.  I am not a napper (unless I’m sick) and I almost never just sit and watch TV.  I arrive to work 25 minutes early to go for a walk before I clock in for the day, and my free moments on break times are spent walking as well.  If anything, I find sitting still rather agitating if done for too long.  Moving around relaxes me probably more than anything else.

Because of all of this, my sleep time is important to me.  I have found some tricks that have helped me to get the most of those 7 hours of sleep, which then make me more productive the entire rest of my day.

The first is my Fitbit.  When I began wearing my Fitbit 3 years ago, I learned it was sometimes taking me over 30 minutes to fall asleep and was restless very often during the night.  By observing my patterns and making connections between my behavior in the evening and my sleep patterns (eating, exercise, etc.) I was able to train myself to sleep better.  Currently, it takes me about 2 minutes to fall asleep once I lay down.  I do have “awake time” in the night – mostly due to how much water I drink all day – but even with that included, I sleep well, and for long, continuous lengths of time. 

The other thing I do is sort of quirky, but for me, it worked immediately.  Since I was a child, I have been prone to vivid dreams and nightmares.  Even as a grown adult, I sometimes wake up frightened by the clarity of my nightmares.  Sometimes they border on the ridiculous, but quite often I dream that I am failing out of school.  A long time ago I noticed that my dreams and nightmares were often connected to things I had on my mind in the evening.  Listening to classical music helped me when I was a teenager and young adult, but I have found something else now that helps me even more.

Bob Ross has the most soothing voice and listening to him paint, the soft brush strokes on the canvas and him muttering softly about trees having friends relax me more than anything else.  I actually quite love watching Bob Ross paint.  How he turns a blank canvas into a masterpiece in 30 minutes amazes me.  But his soft spoken demeanor puts me under a spell, and I am so relaxed I can hardly keep my eyes open.  So every night, I play a YouTube video of Bob Ross on my tablet.  I put the tablet behind my pillow, so the volume is very low but close to my ears, and I listen.  I have never slept better and more peacefully than when I do this.

Then, when my alarm goes off in the morning, I am well rested, refreshed and ready to go 100mph all day again, knowing that no matter how busy and tired I become during the day, I have another restful night ahead of me.

I guess we all need to find the quirk that satisfies us!

I grew up listening to Neil Diamond.  In fact, probably since I was an infant that music has been familiar to me.  He must have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard, and his poetic style is no doubt part of what influenced me to begin writing poetry myself.  Listening to “September Morn” or “Play Me” just make my entire poetic spidey senses tingle.

“Forever in Blue Jeans” has long been one of my favorite songs as well, and often once I begin, it plays on repeat over and over again.  Between his voice and the lyrics, it just fulfills everything that I believe music should be.

I had purchased tickets earlier this year for a night to see Neil Diamond in concert, now celebrating his 50th-anniversary tour.  He is now 76 years old, and I didn’t want to miss my chance.  I paid a hefty sum to get a seat in the nosebleed section, but couldn’t have been more excited than to be in the same arena as Neil Diamond!

Arriving at the venue early, my mom and sister and I began doing laps around the top level of the stadium, trying to hit our Fitbit step goals before we had to sit down.  As time went on, there were more and more people milling around, and I noticed we kept seeing the same man standing off to the side but took very little notice of him.

Finally, he approached us, and looked at me and said, “First of all, I love your Green Bay Packers shirt, it’s great.”  I had to laugh because normally I only ever take abuse for wearing that shirt.  But I fully expected that his next words would be that our pacing around was disruptive or unsettling and we had to take our seats.  What he said instead I still can hardly believe!

He told us he was with Neil Diamond’s team, and asked if we wanted better seats.  Of course, we did, but even the seats we had were very expensive.  He then whipped out three tickets and said, “These are floor seats if you are interested.” 

Not only were they floor seats, they were right in the center, and less than 15 rows away from the stage.  We were going to see Neil Diamond, up close and personal!

When Neil Diamond finally took the stage, we could see his facial expressions, that is how close we were.  And even though he is not as young as he used to be, his voice was powerful and strong and just as amazing as you would expect.  He played for over two hours straight, with no intermission.  And he hit on every single song we wanted to hear – except “September Morn” but I guess you can’t win everything in one evening!  I danced through many of the songs and me and my sister had a riot belting out some of our favorites.  His band was amazing as well, just what you would expect from a performance of that level and his female backup singers were fabulous!!

He was a true class act; he was gracious and put on an amazing show, with a three song encore.  And what a tremendous blessing that man took notice of us and upgraded our seats.  It was a night we will never forget!

I would characterize myself as a highly productive person.  I am a morning person, I have never hit the snooze button in my whole life, and I bounce out of bed ready to go each day.  I am productive almost as a detriment to myself; with a Fitbit step goal each day of 15,000 it is sort of self-defeating in how easily and quickly I can do many things at the same time.

I’d been perusing another blog discussing tools and behaviors that could make our lives easier and more productive.  Some I have also used, and while not all work for everyone, almost anyone can benefit from at least one of them.  One article I found mirrors some of my own ideas.

1. My calendar app – I used the calendar app on my cell phone almost every day.  I log every appointment and set myself reminders, from “remember to mail package” to “remember not to take usual route home” when I know there will be construction.  I use it to remember to give my dogs their monthly Heartguard pills, it notifies me of paydays, hair appointments and of course, birthdays and anniversaries.

2. Fitbit alarms – I have often been at work and missed taking care of something because I was away from my desk and missed the Outlook alert.  Like Bert in Sesame Street tying a string around his finger, my Fitbit will vibrate and remind me that I have something to do.  Works like a charm, even when my phone is locked in my desk.  My Fitbit is also my morning alarm, it wakes me up silently and has never failed me.

3. Trello app – This is a multi-person app (available for free) that allows a group of users to create lists that can be accessed and edited by anyone.  This is great for grocery lists and to-do lists.  It means that if my husband is stopping on his way home for groceries for the list we made the night before, I can think of something else we need, add it to the list and he will see it there when he gets to the store and pulls it up.

4. Google Drive – I used Google Drive to help me maintain access to the things I need when I am away from my primary laptop at home.  From there, I can upload spreadsheets, pictures, video files, projects or anything else and then have access to them on my work computer or my cell phone.  This has saved me on school projects as well as personal ones.  In addition, my entire catalog of personal photos is stored there in case my computer bites the dust.  It also means I can pull up those embarrassing elementary school photos of myself at any time to text to my sister to give her a laugh!

5. Pictures – My husband laughs at me, but I use the camera on my cell phone all of the time to remember what I need to do.  Whether it’s taking a picture of the box of light bulbs so I buy the correct ones at Lowes, or taking a picture of the ingredients on something so I can log it later into my calorie tracker, it prevents me from forgetting details.  At the end of the day, I usually have a few pictures on my phone to clear off that have been there to serve such a purpose.

6. Email labels/filter rules – I have both my personal and work email set up with a multitude of labels and rules to assist me in being able to prioritize effortlessly.  Different levels of priority go to different places.  Informational items are filtered to a specific folder that I don’t even go to unless I need something.  It spares me from scanning and sorting as things come in, and ensures that the things I need are always in the same place.

7.  Having boundaries/saying no – This is the best friend to anyone who wants to be more productive.  We can’t do everything.  Knowing when your plate is full and when to say no is important.  I have 24 hours in my day (minus the 7 hours I give myself to sleep, which also fuels my productivity), and I cannot do anything about that.  Some things can wait and some things can just not be done, and that is okay.  You cannot please everyone, so take that foolish thought out of your head right now.  Decide what is important to you, and stick to that.  Don’t let the distractions of life get you off the course of your ultimate vision!

Most important of all is flexibility.  Sometimes when I find myself getting hampered down by my own rigid expectations I am reminded of the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”  Adapting to changing needs is important, and when one way of doing things becomes ineffective, change it.