This week has been a blur of activity, at home and at work. I won’t say too much about at home, except that the Great Time Crunch is coming to a head, and for a while I’ll have less time than normal, even less than I’ve had the last five months.

Concerning work, I’ve had lots to do. We had two training activities on Tuesday, both involving a guest speaker, which I was responsible for coordinating. One took place off site, an advanced class to a combined group of those I was responsible for and more that another person was responsible for. Then I went back to the main office and the speaker gave a basic class on the same topic, risk management, to a whole other group. Then I rushed back to the other meeting to make a half hour presentation on a topic.

On Wednesday I went back to the offsite meeting (continuing with the smaller group) to hear a particular topic. I’m glad I did, as it was the presentation of a problem  we are having related to one particular group. I listened, helped (I think) by my comments to clarify the problem  as it was being presented and to drill into the proposed solution with three options. No decision was made, but I was glad I went, listened, and contributed, because…

…today I was able to help someone come up with what looks like a good solution to the problem. I was able to contribute in a meaningful way. Will this proposal be the right solution to the problem? Don’t know, but it looks good. But whether it works or not, being part of the problem-solving team felt good. It felt good in part because no one asked me to be on the team. I simply decided I most likely had ideas to share if I knew what the problem was. I went out of my way to try to be part of the solution. And that felt good.

In the brown bag class I taught last week, “How to Recession-Proof Your Career”, I said you do that by increasing your value to the company year over year, even month over month. I think I did that today, this week. Yes, it was exhausting, especially when combined with the busyness at home. But it was satisfying, very satisfying.