Make my logo bigger cream…

Dedicated to all the designers who have to roll their eyes every time they have heard the phrase “Please make the logo bigger” As end of year headlines hit, here’s a little something to remind us to simply laugh a little at the situation. Make My Logo Bigger Cream

Stress

Exactly one week away from the launch of a major online project and the Annual Benefit gala (where the project is being showcased), an email from the executive director came into my mailbox. The subject was “Stress no more…please open” I read the email and took a breath.

I am what I call an adrenaline junkie. A chronic dot-commer addicted to the highs of being in crisis mode. Somewhere along the way, I burnt out. I still get stressed but its at a controlled pace and every once in a while I catch myself falling back into the old patterns of behaviour. People say that I am calm in crisis, that’s what they think…still waters run deep my friends.

Taken from Alexander Kjerulf’s Chief Happiness Officer – Top 5 myths about workplace stress

At least i have gotten good at recognizing the danger signals. I know i am reaching my stress limit when….

1) I have trouble sleeping. My mind works overtime going over all the problems, running in circles.

2) Due to lack of sleep, my eye twitches (this is stress phase 2)

3) When i do sleep, I dream that I am back in college one day before my thesis is due…and yes you guessed it, nothing is done. Even in my dreams, I am thinking…”How did I let myself get into this mess”)

4) I grind my teeth (In my sleep)

5) If its really bad….my bowels misbehave (but we don’t need to go into further details)

When I recognize that I am stressed, here’s what I do.

Prioritization – the secret key

The latest book I have been reading is ‘The 4 Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferris. As with all books, I find that if you can dig out that one piece of advise that applies to you and enables you to improve your life, then the book wasn’t a complete waste of time and money. I have read a lot of management, self-help, financial advise and work improvement type books. There seems to be one central theme that every book eventually pulls out. PRIORITIZATION.

Usually it involves figuring out your goals… and then you prioritize accordingly. As a career project manager, this is my main task. I prioritize and then I re prioritize (for myself, for the project and sometimes for other people who obviously do not understand the concept and have not read the many books that I have)

You know you’ve neglected your blog when….

1) You read about news that you told other people on THEIR blog! (WITNESS has received the first humanitarian award…I guess you could say I won it too right? Wait a second, it isn’t even on the WITNESS site, so I guess I am not too behind) And its a funny thing but this project keeps winning awards even when it hasn’t even launched. I hope we don’t end up like Friendster that never actually got out of beta.

2)  You look at the blog traffic and wonder why in hell the traffic spiked (best day ever) when you haven’t posted anything new in almost two weeks. And what’s worse, my bikram yoga posts do extremely well, and I haven’t done bikram ever since i got to LA. (I feel like a an imposter)

3) You thought you blogged about it, but then you remembered that you only got as far as thinking of blogging it….

4) Now that the blog is getting some traffic and its not just yourself, your mom and the co-worker you forced (or bribed) to read your posts, you are undergoing a paralyzing identity crises. Do you really want the world to know ALL your rambling thoughts and extremely trivial ideas? So you just ignore the entire thing all together.
So in the interest of pulling off the bandaid and putting an end to the languishing blog, here is a quick update of my life.

QA begins today (oh what fun)

Here’s the promo video for the Hub. The site I have spent the last year of my life working on. If you want to read about it, volunteer or become a tester please go to WITNESS’ site or just contact me.

‘This November WITNESS will be launching its newest project: The Hub for human rights media and action.

The Hub will be a grassroots-driven, participatory media website that will enable anyone anywhere in the world with access to the internet to upload, share, discuss and take action around human rights-related media and resources. Through the Hub, organizations, networks and groups around the world will be able to bring their human rights stories and campaigns to global attention.’