Becoming a consumable myself was never the intention of taking over my Homeowner's Association or my wife and I starting our own, multiple individual businesses. I was starting to wonder by this evening, but I checked thoroughly -- there's no clear expiration date stamped on the bottom of my foot.

You see, when you work from home, you tend to work all the time. Many times I've set boundaries, but I'm pretty good at breaking them by taking on more and more volunteer obligations and assignments, and never seeming to quite send that "last email". I keep a pen and pad of paper by the side of the bed because there always seems to be so much that still needs to be done when you're the boss and the employee, no matter what time it is. I can't completely quantify why it was so much easier to get up and leave my desk at exactly 5pm at my old corporate job, but I managed to do it every Monday through Friday, and didn't think once about work on Saturday or Sunday, unless I was simply dreading the return to my desk/prison on Monday.

So I chose instead to "free" myself from their bonds by striking out on my own and discovered I had much heavier chains waiting at home. To quote Samuel Johnson, "The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." I'm sure my workaholism up to this point has a lot to do with the fact that I feel if any of these businesses or ventures fail, I've failed as well, so my ego is on the line too - raising the stakes just one more notch.

Like any good Darwinian organism, I'm fighting hard to survive and thrive with each 24 hour block I get. I also have a vested interest in seeing my homeowners association grow since I'm the not only president, I'm also the newest resident, and most outspoken. Since my election March 7th, I've held three board meetings (March, April, May). Along with my board, in that short time we have come up with the idea of a new web site and some other ambitious plans, including me meeting each of the 190 individual residents, and a spring BBQ that's just two weeks away. Yes, I'll be the one there cooking away at the grill.

So I am rapidly discovering why when you try and make a difference in a large group, it requires a great deal of energy and concentrated effort to get the ball rolling in the right direction. Of course, as soon as you overcome inertia, things get much easier. I'm hoping that's where we're headed on all aspects of business and life, but since I'm often pushing the ball uphill in these environments, if you don't hear from me again for awhile, just assume I've been rolled over a few times, or am feeling a bit Sisyphean at the base of a new hill.

Not surprisingly, the last 6 weeks have blown by without me blogging as often as I'd like, even though I intentionally schedule it in once a month. Somehow something more important always crops up and it gets put off, like flossing - we know it's important and good for us, but we still don't always do it. So when I looked at my calendar this last Monday afternoon after I'd completed teaching an ethics and orientation class at my local real estate board, I was absolutely astounded to find myself with a completely open week.

I blinked a few times to clear my vision. I shook my head from side to side rapidly. I rubbed my eyes even though I've got 20/10 vision and looked again.

Yes, incredibly, aside from an early Wednesday morning Rotary meeting and a 3 hour real estate continuing education class on Friday, I had absolutely no standing obligations and no other appointments set that week. I can't remember the last time I had that kind of open schedule for three days. (Actually, yes I can. It was the week I spent moving to Georgia and I spent three days of my life doing nothing but driving cross country with two cats and three dogs - don't ask.) And that is exactly how that week, which at one point appeared so blissfully wide open, the world wide web conspired to consume me entirely.

Strategic planning in business happens only during the downtimes, both natural and scheduled, when the day to day requirements of business and life aren't getting in the way. This allows people to think about the big picture more easily and fluidly, as they are less distracted by never ending to-do lists and not forced to focus on other things outside of long range planning. That's often why those Eureka moments occur in the shower, while shaving, or performing other mundane tasks like exercise.

Businesses and individuals that don't plan, don't survive in the long run, and I was actually looking forward to doing this. Within a short time, the board had brainstormed some great ideas for the HOA and my wife and I had a few of our own for our multiple businesses. I felt ready to come up with more great ideas and couldn't wait to get started. It had been quite some time since I'd sat and done nothing but think.

I do my best thinking alone. Usually outside, in a natural setting. I try to do so in the car when I'm driving to work by listening to various thought provoking audio books, but invariably my attention is drawn to a car braking in front of me, or a turn I need to make to arrive at my destination.

No matter what I came up with though, there was ultimately a catch I couldn't avoid.

Although myself or anyone else could think of great ideas, *I* was the only one around who could, or would, do the implementation of those ideas. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Just bringing to light my discovery last week that when you think it might take X amount of time, it will probably take Y, where Y equals at least X squared. And that, quite frankly, is how my wide open week somehow melted away to nothing.

Suddenly, I went from having 96 virtually unstructured hours to create amazing strategic initiatives for our businesses and the HOA, to instead finding myself tangled up in the awful monotony of updating three separate web sites: Mine, my wife's, and my HOA's, as well as providing a web design company detailed information and photos to get our e-commerce clothing site up and running by July 1st.

I learned how to juggle at 12 and just never considered that it might be wise to stop eventually. I recommend this book, for which I'd graciously like to thank my uncle for buying me 19 years ago. Yes, as you can clearly see, this is obviously all his fault. =P

So that, my friends, is exactly how I ended up finding myself staring into the bottom of my pool on a Saturday evening enjoying a Modelo Especial (yes, good Mexican beer can be found in Georgia), reflecting on the apparent colossal waste of time I had squandered that week and thinking about pulling a Cameron Frye right then and there.

Instead, I had a Eureka moment and realized my time spent stuck on/in the web that week wasn't all that futile. I had discovered something invaluable that should have been obvious to me long ago: *I* didn't need to be the one doing this kind of work! That's when I realized what all successful corporations picked up on a long time ago -- I need help!

And to do that I have to hire someone else to do this so I can do other things I'm more qualified and adept at doing. Not necessarily more important things, but other, more strategic things. Call it an insight into outsourcing. I quantify this as my first deviation from a fledgling one man business to a semi mature business of multiple people. I'm no IBM yet, but I'm trying to start to thinking like one.

Proof of such insight comes from Parker and I officially moving out of the sole proprietor world and into the wild and crazy lair of LLC's by hiring our first assistant this last week. To quote Robert Frost, "And that has made all the difference!" (I won't even go into how many people we went through before we found her.)

So look for me to be blogging a bit more often in the future since we have now added a competent and qualified individual to our team. I will also make certain that I delegate work to her, not just abdicate my responsibilities and go off on a wild three week bender in the Caribbean.

If we're really lucky though, she might just stick around long enough to become a valuable partner in our many businesses before she "wises up" and seeks the benefits of striking out on her own.

Just like I did a few years ago...