Bullying, Day-timer Style

Your day-timer does not know what God has in store for you. Yet we often pack it wall-to-wall, leaving no room for events of serendipity - those pleasant surprises, unexpected discoveries and ideas born of chit-chat. To exist entirely in the closed circulation of our own thoughts and our own priorities is to miss out on some of the greatest ideas there are: the ones that don't exist yet, the ones that will only come about as you discuss your challenges with a colleague or chew the fat with a store clerk or wander through a small town, off the highway.

As anyone who knows me knows, one of my challenges is to block out my day so as to be effective in all my areas of work - writing, speaking, marketing, and communications consulting. It is something I'm working on.

But Mark Twain reminded me in his Autobiography last night not to go too far with the quest for efficiency when he told me, "side-excursions are the life of our life-journey."

The day-timer can be a tool or it can be a bully. Don't let it push you around..