Dealing With Bad Days

I have three kinds of days: Good day, bad day and #$!%.

I have blogged previously about #$!%, the reverse midas touch, days when everything I touch turns to shit and the best and most reasonable course of action is to end that day and try not to touch anything else.

Good days and bad days come and go, some people choose to quit while they are ahead on good days and take off on a positive note and do something they enjoy, others like to turn bad days into good days, I just kind of go with the flow.

Only exception

On bad days when I’m tired.. stressed out.. I should quit.

I don’t. I work on mundane crap – go over my to do list, review reports, send emails that I’ve had in the queue, follow up with people, update software.. basically deal with stuff that doesn’t require brain, concentration, skill.

First, it’s nearly a form of meditation. You don’t have to move much, you won’t get any good or bad news out of the process, it’s just time * effort equation.

Second, things can only get better. Bad day can only get worse if you try something ambitious and then have that blow up in your face. But if I work on stuff that needs to get done that isn’t going to cause further problems.. I can at least say that it was a bad day but I got a lot of stuff done so hopefully I’ll be less stressed tomorrow.

Third, I’m already stressed out and tired. If it’s 4PM and bed time is hours and hours away, there is no point going to sleep, or wasting the day by drinking. If I have nothing better to do and it’s already a bad day, I’d rather not have my bitchy mood rub off on anyone else.

Fourth… and perhaps most important, there is a reason I defer certain things. Mostly, it’s because I just don’t like doing them. That’s why I write them down and am disciplined to get them done… eventually.

My motto has always been, if something needs to get done I’ll get it done. Sooner or later. While I wish I was more disciplined, less emotionally affected by certain tasks, wish I could defer more things and a ton of other coulda/shoulda/woulda.. thing to remember about building a business is that it’s a process and that there are constraints (financial, time, common sense) and so long as you just see those constraints and work within your capabilities… it’s just a matter of choice to do the work or not do the work.