I would like to begin by asking you a question…..How much is time costing you?
Look at the amusing image of yours truly hatching from an egg at this time of year and consider this. How long do you think it took me to create this image combing my business logo, a rather dashing, but slightly greying photo of me and some random image of an egg?
10 minutes, an hour, all day or I didn’t do it….
While you ponder this, I am going to just get you thinking about the cost of time and how this affects the amount we can do.
It is an undeniable truth that we all have 24 hours a day to get done what we need to get done. So why are some people able to get much more done than other people. Lets also consider that as you will know that I work with people who have disabilities, is it really any different for them? I am going to hopefully get you thinking about this in the next few paragraphs by returning to my earlier question.
If you are regular reader of my Blogs you will know that I often use real-life situations to illustrate my thinking and if I can, will add humour whether it is needed or not. You can catch up with previous Blogs by clicking here.
I had got up reasonably early on Sunday and having logged on to my Profile on the PC, positioned the desk lamp to where it provided the level of task lighting I now need with the growth of my cataract, I started to Google how I could create the clever piece of work you see above. I tend to also lose interest quickly if there is no videos on You Tube to show me what to do, but having found one, I set to work. This was at 09:00 ish in the morning. 40 minutes later I had a logo open in Windows Photo Editor and had cut and pasted a photo of me on to it. I had not even began to try and add the egg to the mix, but started to feel like breaking a few through frustration. If you consider that I am not able to view the results as I complete graphic tasks using my Supernova screen magnifier you will understand why. Assistive technology creates as many problems as it solves. At this point my daughter came into the room and asked why the logo was obliterated by my head; I explained what I had set out to achieve, but was losing patience with the mediocre results.
It wasn’t me!
She asked me what I was trying to do. I explained I wanted to superimpose me on the logo poping out of a egg as it is Easter. She answers “easy, I can do that. You have to leave me to get on with it”. A few draft versions appear in my Inbox and they won’t open. 20 minutes I am instructed to come and have a look at her handy-work. I hear that this is done using layering and this makes me realise how little I really know about getting things done on the computer.
It also brings up the vexed subject that many people ask during a workplace assessment, is all this stuff (assistive technology) going to solve all the issues I have in work due to my disability? And… But…. the answer is no. Supernova is great at getting things done such as word processing the text in this Blog. However, making the text bigger means you cannot also see the entire screen in one go. You can get around this a bit by using its ‘split screen’ function, but this means the normal size desk top has to be compressed. My daughter does not have poor eyesight so sees the text and the screen in one go. She is also clearly much more competent than me at using the computer creatively.
The Point is this!
Remember my point about the reasons why some people are more able to get more done in their 24 hours. They work out what the goal is. They have done their personal SWOT Analysis; they already know that they can get things done by getting more competent people to do them for them. My issue relates to my experience of my own disability. I don’t like asking for help or being seen to get help. I am stubborn n and in the context of this discussion wasting my time and money. If you work for an employer nobody will question your hard work and ask you to explain why you did it ,but took a long time.
But….when…. it…. is…. your…. time
You must do this.
If you need to learn some techniques for managing your time rather than it controlling you, . Please visit my website by clicking the link and I will be only too happy to share one thing you could do right now.
My next Post will be addressing the issues around acceptance of disability by employees with disability and why emotions matter.
More to read here.
Kind regards
Chris