My Rules
Many years ago I had the good fortune to attend a Franklin Time Management seminar. At the time I was really into the Franklin. I never went anywhere without that Franklin Day Planner under my arm. One of the things you do if you follow the Franklin method is to set life long goals. And to help you in this you fill out these special pages. One of them is Called "Beliefs and Goals". I sat and ponder those "Beliefs" for many days and eventually came up with what I figured defined my life at the time. This was the first iteration of "My Rules".
As time moved along and my Franklin was replaced with a Newton (Are all management systems named after scientists?) I just kept my rules in my head spouting them off to people as seemed relevant. Then along comes this show on TV called NCIS. It is my favorite show, a nice blend of procedural, mystery, action and humor. Now in case you have not seen the show, the lead investigator, played by Mark Harmon, has a set of rules he expects his team to know and follow. They are all numbered and contain things like "Rule #9: Never go anywhere without a knife." or "Rule #12: Never date a coworker." This lead me to codify and write down my rules.
1. It is what it is.
2. Life is messy.
3. Get over it.
4. If it works don't fix it.
5. If you don't want to know the answer don't ask the question.
6. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
7. A lack of foresight on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
8. If you want to play lumberjack, you have to learn to handle your end of the log.
9. When in doubt, read the manual.
10. Garbage in garbage out.
This is their current form. From time to time I change them usually when I hear a bit of wisdom and adopt it. Lately, because people know about "My Rules", they ask for a copy and then make suggestions to me. And there are some pretty good thoughts there so I am considering expanding the list to fifteen or twenty. We'll see. But I thought I would share something a bit more light hearted than the last couple of posts.
God Bless you and yours
As time moved along and my Franklin was replaced with a Newton (Are all management systems named after scientists?) I just kept my rules in my head spouting them off to people as seemed relevant. Then along comes this show on TV called NCIS. It is my favorite show, a nice blend of procedural, mystery, action and humor. Now in case you have not seen the show, the lead investigator, played by Mark Harmon, has a set of rules he expects his team to know and follow. They are all numbered and contain things like "Rule #9: Never go anywhere without a knife." or "Rule #12: Never date a coworker." This lead me to codify and write down my rules.
1. It is what it is.
2. Life is messy.
3. Get over it.
4. If it works don't fix it.
5. If you don't want to know the answer don't ask the question.
6. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
7. A lack of foresight on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
8. If you want to play lumberjack, you have to learn to handle your end of the log.
9. When in doubt, read the manual.
10. Garbage in garbage out.
This is their current form. From time to time I change them usually when I hear a bit of wisdom and adopt it. Lately, because people know about "My Rules", they ask for a copy and then make suggestions to me. And there are some pretty good thoughts there so I am considering expanding the list to fifteen or twenty. We'll see. But I thought I would share something a bit more light hearted than the last couple of posts.
God Bless you and yours
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