Five Features Of Terrible Clients

It is a pretty good rule in life to take total responsibility for your own achievements and failures.  What other people do affects you, but you  are the one in charge.  Life is a project and you are the manager.  So you can't blame others- it is all down to you.

Mission Creep

I was working yesterday on a quality audit at a small manufacturing company. If you have ever wondered what the sign  'ISO9000' means on a brochure or a company website, it means that the company works to a defined quality system and has been audited against it by an independent inspector. Impressive stuff!

Dealing With Difficult Clients

I should start out with a disclaimer. If you happen to be a client of mine, please note that none of the remarks in this article relate to you.  I am of course talking about all my other clients.  You yourself are a paradigm of virtue and good sense and I am basically lucky to have you in my life at all and it is just a shame we can't work even closer.

Meditations on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Ancient Greek philosophy probably wasn't much like how we think of it. It wasn't anywhere near as intellectual and rarified as its current manifestation. Doing philosophy in the the classical world was a lot more like a social support group, a set of exercises to help one live ones life and a sort of personal development programme.

Getting Back On The Wagon After Failing To Meet Your Goals

Well yesterday I had one of those days which just didn't live up to my expectations of it. I had some practical work to do but had an accident.  This burnt up an hour in clearing up the mess. Then what should have been a straight forward job of sending out a package turned into an epic struggle to work out how to print labels. I was even googling alternative word processors at one stage.

Five Minute Posting?

Well a fifteen minute blog post is good, but how about a five minute one?

Systematising My Life

One of the most successful things I ever did was set up a database that handles formulations and raw materials. I started it some time early in 2000 and after various iterations and false starts, created the version that I use now in 2004.

Self Discipline

Self discipline is one of those things that we all sort of know about but can't really define.  What I mean when I talk and think about self discipline is really quite simple. It is simply the ability to actually do that which I set out to do.  And on the whole I am not very good at it.

But I think I am getting better.

Writing a blog post in 15 minutes - the sequel

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about writing a blog post in fifteen minutes. I didn't really ever get into the habit I had pondered of actually writing a blog post every morning in 15 minutes and publishing it. For a start I found that writing a blog post in fifteen minutes wasn't that easy in reality, and the results were not all that brilliant when I did.

Lessons from Time Monitoring

When I had a job I would often have what felt like a highly productive day.  I would get to about 4.00pm and look back on hours of solid effort. I would feel rather pleased with myself and reward myself with half an hour of tidying up and tackling those enjoyable jobs that you don't mind doing and leave for home bang on time and with a smug look on my face.