The first step in addictions

The first step is admitting you have an addiction right? I admit I just might have one. I know I have an addictive personality (and I would add that includes people being addicted to me – I’m just sayin’) in that once I latch on to something to do or read or whatever, I obsess with it like crazy until I’ve completed the task, or I’ve grown bored.

Examples of said additive personality include Scrapbooking. I tend to start a “project” or a new scrapbook and focus on it 100% until it’s done. Every waking hour in which I’m not actually at work earning $$ for my addiction, I spend on it until it’s done – or more accurately until I run out of brilliant ideas.

Another glaring example is photography. While I used to be a photographer, then gave it up when I gave up an X-BF and now I’ve decided to be a photographer again. I put all my energy into re-studying, buying a new camera, going out and shooting to remember what the hell I was doing, processing photos, making notes, reading books, posting photos, etc. Until at last I felt comfortable with my ability again.

Then we always have the Chef Extraordinaire addiction. Everyone who knows me knows of my addiction to recipes, and more accurately my addiction of trying new recipes. I have a brandy snifter in which I have little scraps of paper with a recipe on it. Each week I pull one, two or three recipes out (depending on my availability to cook at home) and try them. I set a goal to get through the brandy snifter by the end of the year. Dumb Goal to be sure. First off, I keep adding 10-20 new recipes each month. Second, I couldn’t possibly have enough time to try the thousand that were already in there. So in an attempt to help me with my goal, I sat and went through each-and-every piece of paper and removed the appetizers and desserts. Once that job was done I had only about 750 recipes. Still too many, so adjusted my goal to be “as many as possible”.

And so the point of this entire blog is that I’ve latched onto another item that suddenly is in the forefront of my mind. Now, you all know that I’m a major PM nerd. Geek with a capital G. I love everything about PM’ing – with the exception of budgeting. Why? Because a numbers girl I ain’t. I knew I could learn about budgeting, or get hints/tips etc from a book somewhere, like say Amazon. And so the search began.

In my search for a book on Amazon I uncovered three more PM books I absolutely can’t live without. And so here I am with three new PM books to read (have I mentioned I love curling up at night with a good PM read?) and no time to read. It’s killing me I tell ya.

The one I have started, and have had to put a timer to remind me it was time to go to bed is Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers. Now, being I’m a girl, I assumed I was in touch with my emotions. Turns out, not the case at all. This book has a test in it to provide you a level of emotional intelligence. The scale ranges from, do you even know what an emotion is to crying like a baby because of a hallmark commercial. As I said, I naturally assumed I’d be more on the crying side, so you can imagine my surprise when I scored well toward the “do you know what and emotion is.” To my credit, I do think the questions are very directed toward work situations, and admittedly I don’t get “emotional” at work, at least I try not to. Yet, I discovered that – surprise – dislike toward a co-worker is what dropped my score to the basement. Seems if you are judgmental, you score low. But I say, how can you not be judgmental when certain people you work with are idiots? It’s not possible to not judge them. They by their own actions ASK to be judged.

Anyhow, I’m keeping that in mind, but not changing my “feelings” towards certain skiptards in the area. I’m just sayin’.

The second book, which will be an easy read (assuming I get time to read, what in between my busy social calendar, catching up on Smallville, and coffee breaks) is Finish What you Started: 10 Surefire Ways to Deliver your Projects On Time and On Budget. Okay, so any title that uses the word “surefire” should automatically be questionable. Nothings “surefire” unless you put in the effort to make it so. Regardless, there are some tips in there that I’m sure will help me deliver my project, most importantly on budget. It has some killer templates in there for tracking projects effort that I can’t wait to use and more importantly understand. See, this is where I geek out a big (yes I know I’ve already geeked out on you, but deal with it). I love templates. They, to me, drive the process, and provide you with – well – a template, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

The third and final book that I won’t be able to read anytime soon (without calling in sick to work) is Project Management for Small Projects. The reason I thought this would be useful is that the PMBOK and almost all other forms of PM literature assumes that your projects are long (year or more). In our business our projects are typically shorter (3-6 month). There is the occasional long project, but I emphasize occasional. Naturally trying to fit the square long project process peg into a round small project hole, is not easy. Not easy at all. I complete understand that the methodology laid out from PMI should be considered flexible in that not all projects will fit into that box. Yet, I’ve found it hard to put some of their processes into any type of useful practice.

And so I’m *sure* after reading these books I’ll be back in the standing of PM Goddess.

Pet Peeve # 5789
When people ask for assistance and then won't shut their yaps long enough to hear you answer their supposed important question.