I have come to realise something of late. Every time you are faced with a tough choice you are at your context boundary. Think of the world in which you inhabit as a glass container. When you reach one of the sides you are at the context limit of that container.
So too it is with your mental state. Let’s look at this in a business context, although it applies just as readily elsewhere. When you are faced with something that you ‘can’t do’, is ‘too hard’ or is ‘too difficult’ you should recognize that you are at your context boundary. This is a good thing because it means that you are now only a short distance from expanding your context and growing to the next level.
The problem is that pushing through this context boundary is much more difficult than actually getting to it. That’s why so many people simply give up or back off when it gets ‘too hard’. Those that end up being successful are able to push through this context boundary and expand to the next level.
The simple thing I have come to realize is that when you hear yourself say it is ‘too hard’ you firstly know that you have reached your context boundary. The second thing to realize is that to grow and expand your context all it takes is a little more effort to move through that barrier.
As simplistic as it sounds I have found a lot of strength understanding and acknowledging these two points. It has allowed me to step back and say ‘you know what? If I can go just a little bit more I’ll be through this and onto bigger things’. That has certainly provided the energy to actually push through the barriers and achieve what I want to achieve.
Simple stuff I know but in most cases that is what makes all the difference for success.

For those that are regular readers of this blog you’ll know that I have been working hard to reduce the about of on site technology I have. Recently, I migrated this blog to Blogger and finally switched off the server that I used to host it. That now meant that I had no systems that needed to be constantly on. That prompted me to take the initiative and turn everything off when I wasn’t using it.
So unless I need my desktop, laptop or storage server they remain off. The consequence of that? I have cut my power bill by about one third which is fantastic! I am now getting into the habit of powering off everything else that might consume power to see whether that may any additional difference. I somehow doubt it as most of power was being consumed by running PC’s.
This immediate saving in power consumption got me thinking about what else could/should be “turned off”?
One of things that I note many people never turn off is their mobile. I understand that some people need to be constantly available but is that REALLY you? A while back when we never had mobiles people seemed to survive. Yet, where ever I go these days I see people with a mobile glued to their ear having long conversations. Don’t get me started about the dangers of using a mobile over extended periods of time but do REALLY need to use it that much?
I know people that complain about poor sleep quality yet they leave their mobiles on all night and even answer emails ‘because they can’t sleep’. How about you try turning the mobile OFF and see whether you sleep better? You are the master of the mobile not the other way around! Use technology to improve not hinder your life I say.
Another challenge that many people seem to face these days is actually ‘turning off’ from technology and turning onto people. Sure, every one is on Facebook, Twitter, and so on but are these REAL relationships? Are these who would do you a favour? Hmmm…probably not. Why? Because even though they converse with you on social media they still don’t really ‘know’ you. Remember, something like 80% of human communication is non-verbal via things such as body language. By only chatting over emails and social media you are going to miss a lot of this.
Now tell me how many times you have met with someone or a group and everyone seems to spend all their time look at their phones? A tad rude? Again, they again can’t ‘switch off’. The technology is controlling them, some may even say they are addicted.
Perhaps the most pure form of ‘switching off’ is simply to mediate. When was the last time you found somewhere quiet and just sat? Did nothing? Allowed your thoughts to come and go? No TV, no Internet, no mobile, etc. In today’s always on, always busy world I think you’d struggle to find anyone who does this regularly. However, don’t think that being constantly ‘on’ doesn’t come at a price. To your health, your relationships and even you hip pocket (someone’s paying for all those mobile calls!)
Perhaps the message for this post is that if you are feeling burnt out, stressed and tired when was the last time that you just ‘turned off’? If you haven’t I’d suggest you at least give it a try over a two week period and see if you are not the better for it. Just like the money I saved when I turned off my desktops, I’m sure you’ll save a huge amount of energy and more importantly it will provide focus for what is really most important in your life.

So many people who run businesses I know focus on expenses before revenue. I think that is totally the wrong way of looking at things. Let me give you some reasons why.
Many say they they want to minimize their tax. Great, that should be part of your strategy but it shouldn’t be your major strategy. For example, many business owners elect to keep the money in their business and only draw out the minimum they require as they require. That minimizes their taxable income sure but it comes at a penalty.
By minimizing your personal revenue that way when it comes to taking out a loan for a house, a car or anything the bank is going to look at the minimal income produced and possibly reject the application even though there maybe ‘oodles’ of money in the business.
Hopefully, at some stage you are going to want to draw that wealth out of the company and guess what? It is going to get taxed then. Chances are it will probably be taxed at a high rate. This typically happens when you need the money for an emergency.
To me paying yourself only a minimal income is focusing on expenses rather than driving you to expand the revenue the business generates. The old adage in budgeting is that you should ‘pay yourself first’ and then work out how to manage the rest. For me, it is the same in business. You should always pay yourself a decent rate, pay the tax (because you’ll probably have to pay it anyway at some stage) and focus on growing revenues which is more likely to help your business succeed.
Minimizing expenses is a defensive business strategy that makes you more vulnerable the longer you pursue it because it doesn’t promote growth and tires you out. Also, as any fighter will tell you, you can’t defend forever, sooner or later you get hit. Alternatively, if you focus on revenues before expenses you are improving the strength of your business and making it more resilient. You are also enjoying the fruits of your labour instead of deferring it until some unknown date in the future.
The bottom line is that you should be out there looking for business income rather than staying glued to a screen wondering how to save money. Again, revenue before expenses.

Once a month I take a look back over what I find the most interesting posts from the same month in previous years. Here’s what I found interesting when I delved into the archives.

2012

Doing SharePoint no favours – https://blog.ciaops.com/2012/05/doing-sharepoint-no-favours.html

In this post I highlight how, in my opinion, Microsoft had ‘dumbed’ down SharePoint on the Office 365 P plan far too much. They had left out or hidden many of the best features of SharePoint. Doing that, I didn’t think, would really drive the adoption of SharePoint. I am glad to say things have changed with the new (Wave 15) version of Office 365 and P Plans.

2011

Locked SharePoint site – https://blog.ciaops.com/2011/05/locked-sharepoint-site.html

One issue that does arise with SharePoint sites on premise when a backup fails is that the site becomes locked. This is because it is put into ‘read-only/locked’ mode while the backup is taking place. This post details how to unlock a site after something like this happens.

Erky Perky – https://blog.ciaops.com/2011/05/erky-perky.html

This post details how all updates to SharePoint 2010 need to have a manual command line operation run to complete. If you don’t run this then you are not updating your SharePoint 2010 site.

2010

SharePoint 2010 on SBS 2008 – Yes but why? – https://blog.ciaops.com/2010/05/sharepoint-2010-on-sbs-2008-yes-but-why.html

After a series on posts on how you can get SharePoint 2010 Foundation running on SBS 2008 I step back and look at the business reasons why this is probably not such a good idea.

Sweat – https://blog.ciaops.com/2010/05/sweat.html

Here I look at the fact that success is all about working beyond the average. If you want to improve your physique then you need to exercise. Likewise, if you want to improve your business you need to work hard. Simply doing the same every day leads to mediocrity and places you and your business at risk.

2009

Distractions– https://blog.ciaops.com/2009/05/distractions.html

If you are frustrated that you aren’t getting things done then I would suggest you examine whether you are permitting distractions to syphon you time and productivity away.

Complaint handling – https://blog.ciaops.com/2009/05/complaint-handling.html

Does your business have a formal process for handling complaints? Most businesses treat complaints with contempt, however they are some of the greatest sources of feedbacks and can easily be converted into raving reviews. However, to do this you should have a formal process in place.

2008

Why people don’t use SharePoint – https://blog.ciaops.com/2008/05/why-people-don-use-sharepoint.html

My thoughts on why people don’t use SharePoint and what can be done to overcome this.

The relationship bank – https://blog.ciaops.com/2008/05/the-relationship-bank.html

Dealing with others requires a relationship and in this post I share my thoughts on how you can ensure that your relationships can have greater than normal chance of success.