Discipline

I’m good at a lot of things but not so good at consistency.  You wouldn’t want to hire me to keep a fire stoked over the winter or make sure a fleet of buses get regular maintenance.  What I’m good at is crisis.  Getting a ridiculous amount of work done very fast is my thing.  Writing a big federal proposal involving lots of moving parts, people who disagree, and an unripe concept.  That’s for me.  Taking lots of data and putting out a nice looking report by Monday.  In fact, my old mantra is ‘ if I have a weekend, I can get it done.’ 

So when my web designer told me I should have a blog, I said sure.  I like to write.  I have a lot of opinions.  I’ll do a blog.  Well, I did one…..weeks elapsed.  Then I did another…..more weeks.  Now I realize that my last blog or post or whatever was in July and I realize, I’m not very good at this blogging thing. 

A few days ago I participated in a workshop with two very bright guys from ACLU who are experts in using social networking to organize youth around social justice issues.  Among many key takeaways – if you aren’t blogging at least twice a week, it’s not worth doing.  Obviously, my monthly (or now bi-monthly) posts aren’t cutting it.

So why bother, I asked myself.  I guess the answer is – because I need the discipline of putting my thoughts in order and setting them to paper (or in this case the really small box in my web management system).  I need the discipline of sorting through what’s important to share and finding things that might be worthwhile to people who are working on grants or trying to organize their research.  Most of all, I need the discipline of finding good ways to use my knowledge, successes, and most of all, my many professional failures and mishaps to connect with my peers.

So it’s fall.  Time for getting down to business.  Regular blogging twice a week….right after I go to the gym….:-).  You heard it here.