Musings at Altitude

Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, “If I had eight hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.”  What a great statement about preparation!

I was thinking about that this weekend as I spent these past two days in preparation for the week(s) ahead.  And this happens every weekend.  We have about 24 hours (two 12 hour days) each week to prepare for about 60 hours (five 12 hour days) of work during the week.  And then we do it again.  Some of us prepare by standing down, relaxing, reviving, and getting prepared for the chaos and tension of the week to come.  Others spend the weekend catching up, reducing the tasks sitting in the inbox, and easing the burden of the magnitude and sheer number of tasks that may be waiting in the week ahead.  But in some way, we all prepare for the week ahead by recovering from the week before and anticipating the things to come.

Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant is quoted as saying, “It’s not the will to win that matters – everyone has that.  It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”

I can’t remember a weekend where I didn’t spend some significant portion of time thinking about and planning for the week ahead.  When the week begins, I can easily tell how well I prepared, and I can see a big difference when I didn’t have the will to prepare or didn’t spend the needed time in preparation for the things that hit me immediately in the new week. 

Ben Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

I wasn’t blessed with great intelligence, extraordinary skills, or mental nimbleness, so I’ve always had to prepare longer, work additional hours, and worry more than most folks.  That’s the only way I’ve ever known how to effectively prepare for the tough issues that lay ahead or the intensity of tasks that were certain to come.  In that preparation, I often times had to prioritize work over family or work over personal time, but I felt I had no choice.  If I didn’t, I was preparing to fail.

Henry Ford said, “Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success.”

One of my biggest challenges in life is my desperate desire to procrastinate.  Although I work long hours, I haven’t quite got the clue as to how to work smartly and how to prioritize my hours so that those things requiring the most focus are the things at the top of my list.  For some reason I always do seem to eventually get ready and be ready, but the tension gets high and the nerves max out as the last minute preparation creates great anxiety in route to that success.

I did take a break from any preparation today to watch the Daytona 500 with my 15 year old.  So maybe it’s best to wrap up this posting with a new quote based on a NASCAR theme – “By not taking the necessary time to prepare, you automatically start at the back of the pack giving the others at least a 20 car length head start.”

PS.  The top three quotes came from leadershipnow.com and the last one came from motivational-inspirational-corner.com.