Breaking Down the Day, Time Management Analysis, Breathing and Needing to Be

"Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells, and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find the meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be."

— Albert Camus (Notebooks 1951-1959)

I’m trying to become a better human being. I’m looking at all areas of my life, tweaking, changing, updating, analyzing. I think it important after a near-death experience to make adjustments in a life of imperfection.

I’m having one of my virtual assistants track my hour by hour work during the day and will be sharing it with my board of directors to get their input on how I might become more effective with my time. You would think by age 50 I would have everything figured out, maybe I do, but why not let others judge how I’m spending my time?

I was up at 5:00 a.m. yesterday; I made soup for an hour, then cleaned up some email, showered, then joined a virtual peer group meeting. We were scheduled to meet downtown, but due to the weather reset and met using ZOOM. It was a great meeting; we shared our wins, losses, and where we could maximize our time.

As soon as that meeting ended, I jumped in my 2006 Ford Escape, my partner calls it a POS, but it’s my daily driver, I don’t need anything fancy, I’m not a car guy, I just need to get from point A to B, I could drive anything, but choose to pay cash for my vehicles. I’ve learned long ago; vehicles are not a great investment. 

As I was waiting for it to warm up, a long-time client called and said “I was just at the license branch, I called your office, they told me I had not had insurance since 2011”. Jack is a friend and has been a client for about 20 years. He was changing vehicles, needed proof of insurance, and was looking for his policy number. I sat there in shock; I had personally reviewed Jack’s coverage in the last couple of years; something was amiss in insurance land.

I called one of our VIP agents and asked her to look into it. I got a text back within minutes; he had coverage, all was fine; she was calling him back to review. I then called my operations manager and asked him how in the hell one of our team members had told a long-time client he had no coverage since 2011. He was perplexed but promised he would dive in and find a solution.

I left my home and headed north to Muncie. When I drive, I use that time to contact clients, follow up with my team, it’s a great time to mark things off my list.  I drove about an hour before landing at my destination. I chatted with one of our team members in Colorado about a major change we’re contemplating and how we might adjust once that trigger is pulled.

I met with a client, did a deep dive on their renewal, left there, met with another client for lunch, reviewed his program. I was then headed back to my office to work with my team. I arrived, and my first question to my ops manager was WTF happened with Jack. 

He said I’ve called our answering service, they have no record of the call, I asked staff, no one spoke to him, do you think he called the wrong agency? I smiled, that might make sense. So I texted my friend who by this time had spoken to Kelli, he was fine, but I asked, what number did you dial to get to our office. 

He shared the number, and as I dialed it, it came up as another insurance agency in the area. My client had, at one time, used another firm, logged it in as insurance and did not notice when they answered the phone, it was not our firm. I felt like Scooby-Doo solving a major mystery. The Universe would have gotten away with it if it was for those darn kids.

I met with my ops manager, our CFO, and my partner, we reviewed some numbers, our plan moving forward and then headed back to Muncie to review a claim with a client. I wrapped up at about 4:15, jumped in my POS, and headed back home an hour and a half away.

As I drove, I follow up with clients, spoke to my Queen about my day, tried to call one of my kids, but no luck. I got home, shared the Jack story with my Queen, and then called Jack to share a laugh and let him know he was the exciting part of my otherwise normal day.

How do you spend your time? Are you effective? Should you rethink about how you are spending your moments adjusting to becoming more effective. It’s a serious question, one that I am trying to answer myself. We all have the same amount of time in a day, how we spend it is up to us, what can we do to maximize our time and make sure we are impacting the world as much as we possibly can?

Salty broth this morning, thank you for stopping by the free internet soup kitchen. I serve here daily, I’ll be offering another batch tomorrow, maybe I can find some nugget of wisdom that will help you, but today I am only interested in one thing “are you effective with your time?”

"Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells, and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be."

— Albert Camus (Notebooks 1951-1959)