Positive Feedback

I've always been a believer in positive comments being a better motivator than negative feedback. I was on a project for about a year where the sponsor provided almost no feedback unless something bad was happening. Unfortunately, terrible things happened on this project almost weekly. The worst was the architect and the developer not communicating and getting along. They were both passive aggressive, so eventually it resulted in a big blowout. I had to mitigate the issues, facilitate their meetings, report the events to management at all levels and finally kick one of them off the project.

There were other problems with people leaving the project ( approximately 100% turnover on the project twice) and of course not delivering much on schedule. So, needless to say, I was stressed out and felt like I could not get out the hole I had dug our team into. So... I quit the project / got kicked off.... another story.

I'm now on 2 projects where the sponsor actually likes me and looks to me for input and direction. I'm noticing my response to positive feedback is I want to live up to this expectation. This is a much better motivator than the negative feedback. It's great to get good feedback, but I'm actually most excited that my year of hell turned out to be a learning experience. It took me a few months to appreciate this, but I'm glad I'm starting to.

It begins

I have been semi-retired from my consulting job for almost 3 months. My last day on my big project was officially March 16th, so once all the scrutinizing and complaning and questioning ended, it was about March 23rd. I've been working a few hours a week for 11 weeks now and today is one of those days where I have no idea what I did. My biggest accomplishment was coming up with a URL for my blog.

Overall, the time off has been fantastic. Most of those activities that I cut out of your life due to work, work-related activities or work-stress have been re-introduced into my life: sleep, exercise, playing with my son, talking to my husband, petting the dog, making dinner. I can feel the damage from the work stress healing.

On days like today, I like to review my 'accomplishments' since I left my job to assure myself that a few days of loafing aren't so bad:
- Read some books
- Got library card and have visited a few times
- Repainted bathroom
- Painted office
- Built Ikea office furniture
- Organized all bills and papers on office
- Cleaned out a bunch of drawers and closets
- Re-sealed outside furniture
- Hung some pictures
- Visited my family in Chicago for a week
- Lost 2 pounds (maybe?)

I've been so list and deadline driven for long it's hard to feel like a day is productive if you can't check at least a few things off. I wonder if jotting down my thoughts each day will keep me more focused. We'll see.