Blogging or Thinking
I made a little discovery yesterday about the pattern of when I post to my blog and when I don't. It comes down to the "Time Matrix" discussed in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. The time matrix suggests that all activities and concerns can be broken down into four quadrants. Quadrants one and two are labeled "important" while quadrants three and four are labeled "unimportant" Quadrants one and three are labeled "urgent" while two and four are "not urgent." The idea is that we should spend out time in quadrants one and two instead of the natural tendency to focus on quadrants one and three. Quadrant three "urgent/unimportant" is full of things that grab your attention which can be ignored, like a ringing telephone. Quadrant three is the reason we invent things like caller-id.
When I am busy thinking about things in quadrant one I tend to miss writing in my blog. I get buried in thinking about the problem at hand and do not take the time to relax and filter my thoughts through the lens of language. I missed a week when I thought I was going to be getting a very nice job because I did not want to write about the company and then have nothing come of it. I missed this weekend because I was thinking about how to address the conundrum of responding to a job offer while waiting on a second possible offer. Ideally I would be able to get both offers and make a decision. So far I have been stuck with one offer and the second employer has been delayed by some vague internal emergencies. I solved that by coming to an agreement with the first employer. We set a date for me to make a decision with or without the second offer.
So there it is. When I am not blogging, it is probably because I am stuck in quadrant one.
2 comments:
If the second company is slow with their "internal emergencies," why don't you accept the first job - if it is good enough? Then if the second one really does come through next month or in 3 months (I've seen employers take even 6 months to complete the interview process.) you could re-evaluate the situation. Any employer would understand if the second offer was better. I changed jobs after 4 months when a previous interviewer offered me a better situation. I left my job with mutual good feelings since I had responded quickly and saw them through their pressing situation.
That is basically what I am doing here, except that I expect the second one to come through within two weeks. I think my hesitancy was mainly due to my own inexperience. I have now had three people give me the same advice you just gave, which is how I was finally willing to move forward with the current offer.
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