Posted on

I Don’t Dislike Mondays

I used to fit the “I hate Monday” stereotype perfectly. In fact, that first day of the work week used to fill me with terror. I’d start to get depressed Saturday night because it meant the weekend was halfway done. I’d get so worked up on Sundays that I’d short circuit and sleep most of the afternoon away.

Now I love Mondays. When someone complains about it, I laugh or roll my eyes, conveniently forgetting that I used to get that way.

Mood music:

So why the turnaround? It wasn’t immediate.

Learning to manage my depression certainly helped.

I used to get overwhelmed by all the work I usually had to do on Mondays and Tuesdays, which were the busiest, longest days of the week when I was a reporter and editor for weekly newspapers. Those were the days when you had all the municipal meetings to cover and all the writing to do. I used to write all five-seven stories a week in one day.

That kind of disorganization made life messy on its own. But my unchecked OCD and depression made it worse, and I wasted many weekends on worry as a result.

Finding the right medication and developing an arsenal of coping tools went far in changing how my brain processes things. Finding my career groove helped, too.

When I saw work as a massive pile of shit to be shoveled every week, the depression was inevitable. In more recent years, particularly the last eight, I’ve been blessed with work I love.

I’m happy to put it down on the weekends. But now I see Mondays as that time when I can dive back into creative mode.

There are things I do so I can start the week right:

  • I make lists of things to do for work and home. Writing a list means I don’t have to keep rehashing the agenda in my head over and over again.
  • I get to bed fairly early on Sunday night.
  • I plan out my breakfast and lunch for the week. Otherwise, I’d starts the week eating from the drive-through and wouldn’t stop.
  • I play a lot of guitar on Sunday. I play guitar daily, mind you, but those Sunday sessions have become critical to my mental equilibrium.

It’s Sunday night as I write this, and I’m feeling just fine.

Calvin and Hobbes making faces; happy Monday

Posted on

Work-Life Balance in the 21st Century

A friend noted the other day that he actually gets annoyed about holidays and mandatory paid time off because he simply loves his work and would rather keep at it each day. He’s not an all-work-no-play kind of guy, either. He’s a dedicated weight lifter, traveler, music lover and bee keeper, all things that require time away from the computer.

I see some of myself in his outlook on life. I too love what I do, and I don’t mind a bit when I find myself thinking about work stuff on weekends and days off.

Mood music:

True, we’re lucky because we have great jobs that come with a lot of freedom. If we worked in retail or drove trucks, we might feel quite differently. But to me, what we’re experiencing reflects a change in the way technology has allowed us to live our lives.

For my part, I treasure and protect my personal time. I rearrange work schedules to accommodate family, whether it’s to drive the kids back and forth to appointments and scouting activities or simply to keep an eye on the kids so my wife can hole up in her office and meet deadlines. On weekends I rarely do work activities these days, though my brain will often spin some ideas around that I need to jot down so I won’t forget come Monday.

I manage to get my work done despite a busy personal life that includes guitar lessons, church activities and chores. I’ve actually found that on my work-at-home days, I can participate in call-in work meetings while folding laundry and emptying trash, activities that require little thought and allow me to focus my mind on the work being discussed.

In the bigger picture, I think my generation is pretty fortunate. Our parents had to be out of the house to do their jobs and often would have to be gone early in the morning and not be back until late in the evening. Some jobs are still like that, but if you work with technology and your company’s brands all reside on the Internet, you can work pretty much anywhere where there’s an Internet connection. And you can find the Internet almost anywhere.

I have my office days and my work-at-home days, but I also get work done while sitting in waiting rooms when the kids have dental appointments or in the Jiffy Lube during an oil change.

Some say these things aren’t necessarily changes for the better. Indeed, it’s harder now to completely separate work from personal time because with smart phones, iPads and the like, work can always find you. For me, the trick, one I admittedly haven’t mastered yet, is to not pick up the phone every time it rings or answer emails the second they hit the inbox.

There’s plenty of room for a workaholic to get lost and get sucked away from home life. But my life is better for having these things. It’s up to us to put the technology in its proper place and balance the work with everything else.

Work-life balance

Posted on

Farewell, CSO and IDG. Hello, Akamai!

Today is my last day as managing editor of CSO Magazine and CSOonline. Monday, my new job at Akamai begins. I’m excited about the new challenges that await me. But I’m going to miss the place where I spent the last five years of my professional life.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:1JFQyGHeNDAqUAubIAMiXI]

It’s been an excellent ride. I worked with some of the best talent and sweetest human beings on Earth. I got to burrow deeper into the information security community and made many new friends along the way. And I’m a better man for it.

Just a few of the folks I’ve loved working with:

Derek Slater: A gentle soul with a mighty laugh, Derek gave me a ton of creative freedom. My only regret about this relationship is that I never succeeded in getting him to drop some F-bombs. Trust me, I tried. The dirtiest thing this man will say in a moment of crisis is pickles. One night at a dinner we hosted for CSOs attending one of our events, he introduced himself this way: “Hi, I’m Derek. I ‘manage’ Bill Brenner.” The room erupted in laughter, and Andy Ellis — my new boss come Monday — raised his glass and congratulated Derek for managing a guy like me without losing his grip on sanity. I’d like to think Derek’s rational ways have rubbed off on me.

Joan Goodchild: Joan is a powerhouse whose videos, slideshows and articles have been key to CSOonline‘s rise  in monthly traffic. I worked with her at TechTarget and was thrilled when she joined CSO a few months after me. She’s been a good friend through some turbulent times, and I’m forever grateful for that.

John Gallant: John runs IDG Enterprise with good humor and grace, and he’s gone to the mat for CSO on countless occasions. We bonded over an interest in WWII history, our common geographical roots, cigars and movies. I’ll miss his always-entertaining editorial offsites.

Steve Traynor: Steverino designs all CSO‘s pages and helped us make CSOonline more visually compelling. He put up with a lot from me, and we had a ridiculous amount of fun concocting illustrations and layouts.

Bob Bragdon: Bob is CSO‘s publisher, a Marblehead Yankee and an all-around great guy. He took a lot of ribbing from me and gave it back in kind. One time, after I returned from a Washington, DC, trip that included a grilling from the Secret Service, I discovered that Bob had plastered my workspace with signs welcoming me to Gitmo. I got him back a million times over and had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

Per Melker: CSO’s top sales guy for most of my time there, Per was my traveling partner in crime. He did the driving as we journeyed to Hoover Dam for a security tour and, more recently, a side trip to Amityville, NY, so I could take pictures of the famous house for a slideshow.

There are many more people who made my time at CSO richer, and I thank them all. CSO and its parent company, IDG, will always hold a special place in my heart.

Now it’s time to start a new adventure and kick some ass at Akamai.

CSO Cube