Recently I was asked about the origin and meaning of the name of this consultancy: Plumbline Management.  While I have rarely utilized this weekly email to focus on my own company, it seems that the answer to this question bears addressing.

So…what is a Plumbline, and why is the company named Plumbline Management? Great question.

For several weeks we have been exploring a number of approaches to time management to enhance our efficiency in the area of personal productivity.

As is so often the case, when I am tuned in to a topic I begin to "see it everywhere" in the content and ideas of others. And so it was again this week.  I read an article by my friend and successful business leader Dennis Trittin earlier this week ... and so I thought it would be good to share his insights with my own readers.

Dennis says it this way:

Two weeks ago we looked at the important self and time management tool of learning to say “no.” Our focus centered on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s reminder, “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.”

I have recently been in a number of conversations with people who have told me that they feel overwhelmed; they articulate that they have “too many things on their plate.”  In speaking with these friends, it is as if they feel that they are caught in a vortex of tasks and relationship demands…and the demands have become endless.

The question that has come to mind is this, “What happened to the word ‘No’”?

Recently I spent a couple days away with family in a location where we had limited cell phone and internet connections.  In fact, much of the time there was no wireless connectivity at all.

And that was an experience that reminded me just how “addicted” I have become to continuously checking my phone and internet communication tools.  At first I was checking my smart phone every few minutes; after a while the frequency shifted to every few hours, and eventually, I sort of just gave up glancing at my phone at all.  It was instructive.