SUMMERRRRR...

Monday, one of my customers cancelled what was to be a day long marketing meeting for Wednesday.  Bad news, no engagement in a review of a complex marketing repositioning; good news, an entire wide-open day to take care of the 2 or 3 priority activities that were quickly becoming overflowing mini-projects.

Why did I focus on just 3 things?  Simply because in the 10 hours of Wednesday, I figured that I could probably pull off 2 of these, and that 3 would be a stretch.  Having decided that, I also thought that if I could possibly complete all 3, then that would absolutely deserve a personal reward of taking a walk on the beach at the end of the day.  Add to all of this the fact that I can barely remember 3 priorities on any given day, let alone get rid of the clutter that surrounds me to be able to deal with 3 things. 

“A clean forest is a happy forest” has become, over many years, my mantra about the annual cleanup of my woodlot in Vermont.  For me, retreating to the woods on a Saturday like yesterday, right at the crack of dawn towing my chipper with one of our ATVs is definitely part of my “Time-to-Clean-My-Head” therapy. 

Beginning the weekend after the snow melts, my ragtag team of high school students and I attack the woods dragging out fallen trees and collecting the wind-tossed debris into piles to be munched later in the season by “Charlie the Chipper”.  Easy-to-snap branches become necessary kindling and are quickly sorted into bins destined for winter storage in the potting shed-not a small task since we burn 4 cords of wood just to bring our propane and electricity costs down to a reasonable budget that doesn’t require a home equity loan.  The rest of the debris in the woods becomes food for Charlie, who has a big appetite and managed yesterday to devour everything else in the woods leaving me with both “a clean and a happy forest”.