Want to Earn a Lot More? Think a Lot Less.

By ROBERT GOLDMAN

Ever wonder what's holding you back at work?

It could be something you do when you're not at work.

Thinking.

problems will help you find new solutions. It's much more likely that you will find fatigue and burnout. And that's crazy.

wipe out life as we know it. Add Nostradamus and the ancient Mayans. I've heard it all.

Years ago, National Geographic rolled out a TV show, "Doomsday Preppers," featuring ordinary, everyday people who are reacting and responding to potential disasters.

One guy in California is prepping for an earthquake that might flatten Los Angeles. He's learned to live off shrubs and weeds and carries a flint to build fires.

A woman in Texas is expecting an unusually nasty oil crisis. The Houston party girl built an impressive survival cache in her tiny apartment, and she practices nighttime backpacking routes to get out of a city she expects will be completely blacked out.

Another Texan profiled foresees a polar shift, where the entire Earth will be doing a backflip on its axis. He's constructed a home near San Antonio, using eight steel shipping containers, and loaded it up with enough food and ammo to last for 20 years.

So, do I line up with these extremists? Not at all. I find it entertaining but certainly not realistic or reasonable. The other extreme is to not be prepared at all, however, which also is unacceptable. To me, building a reasonable emergency supply of food for my family is responsible. It's insurance.

In my adult lifetime, my husband and I have paid more than $100,000 for insurance (automobile, homeowner, health, etc.). We've filed precious few claims; nowhere close to the premiums paid. Do I regret it? No! I am grateful we have not faced devastating tragedy.

To me, food and survival supplies in reasonable amounts are just as much insurance as our policies that cover household disasters. These things give me peace of mind and assurance that I will be able to protect my property, my family and my life in the event of emergencies or disasters.

One challenge with building a stockpile of food the way I'm doing it is that it takes a long time. Another option is to invest in a ready-made stockpile from a reputable company like My Patriot Supply. Their freeze-dried meals are really tasty, convenient to store, easy to prepare and they have a long shelf life.

Done reasonably, emergency preparedness, in whatever form it takes, is not whacky. And I intend to do everything in my power to encourage you to follow my lead.

Stick around for more on this in future columns coming up soon.

Thinking about how you're falling behind in your projects. Thinking about how a wave of layoffs could be on the horizon. Thinking about whether your coworkers are acting more suspicious than usual. Thinking about why Jackie in HR is giving you the fish eye. Thinking about why your manager keeps their door closed. Thinking about how you can brush the cobwebs off your resume. Thinking about why no one invites you to lunch. Thinking about how you can possibly stop thinking about work.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about thinking, ever since I read "How to Stop Thinking About Work All the Time," a recent article by Jancee Dunn in The New York Times. And here's what I think: Dunn is definitely onto something.

So is psychologist and Ted talker Guy Winch, whose practice focuses on "how to limit work-related overthinking."

According to Winch, "when we succumb to negative work rumination -- persistent and repetitive thoughts around issues at our jobs -- it feels urgent and important, but it's actually unproductive."

When you bring work worries home, you're not helping yourself; you're stressing yourself. Nor are you doing your employer any favors. You may believe that spending all night obsessing on work

You really don't need more reasons to make yourself miserable. That's your manager's job.

Are there strategies to help you turn off your brain at the end of the workday? Dr. Winch has some helpful thoughts, guaranteed to make your work life much better. I have added some ideas of my own, guaranteed to make your work life much worse. No need to thank me. Just doing my job.

No. 1: Keep a journal.

Keeping track of how many hours you spend stewing over work issues will be illuminating. It could also be lucrative. Turn your weekly worry report in to the accounting department as a legitimate work expense. Considering how little time you spend thinking during the workday, your latenight cogitations could represent your biggest contribution to your company's inevitable collapse, and you certainly deserve to be compensated for it.

No. 2: Set guardrails.

Dr. Winch recommends you "establish a clear line when your workday ends, and be strict about maintaining it." One way to do this is to "ritualize your transition from home to job by changing your clothes." If you wear casual clothes to work, or work from home in your PJs, establishing clear lines may require you to go to extremes, like ending the workday by putting on a sleek Prada tuxedo or slipping into a slinky Balmain evening gown. A more affordable solution is to simply take off your clothes when the 5 o'clock whistle blows. Trust me, if you want problems to think about that have absolutely nothing to do with work, start commuting naked.

No. 3: Turn ruminative thoughts into productive ones. Endlessly worrying about work will not improve your job or your mental health. If you're going to be up all night stressing, focus on finding solutions to business problems that are realistic and actionable. Since these don't exist, spend your time coming up with nasty gossip that you can start spreading the next morning. This way, you'll have time for true career-enhancing activities, like toasting your competition and buttering up your boss.

No. 4: Learn the difference between unplugging and recharging.

A recharging activity "leaves you feeling energized mentally and pleased with yourself for doing it." The activities recommended include working out, crafting or meditation. Clearly, crafting produces the most bang for the buck. Think how grateful your CEO will be when you present them with one of the Popsicle-stick bird feeders that so impressed your mother when you were in third grade. By expressing your creativity, you will be refreshed and recharged while establishing yourself once and for all as a weirdo everyone should leave alone.

She has let nothing stand in the way of her mission... not even COVID. As schools joined with numerous public operations and closed, they shifted to online work. While administrator on duty for a girls' soccer game she learned at a staff meeting during spring break 2020 that her school was being temporarily closed due to the pandemic. It did not reopen until the beginning of the following school year. In 2020, even the prom and graduation were postponed until later in the summer. For her and her family this development was personal and significant.

"My youngest son was a senior in 2020 and this greatly impacted his experiences for the remainder of his school career," she says. "We finished the school year with virtual learning."

The PACE campus did a great job using online services as an alternative to classrooms, thus making the transition much easier for students. Using computers also facilitated communication between teachers, students, and parents. By the time classrooms re-opened in August 2020, the online resource was firmly entrenched as the standard for teachers, providing instructional material to their home campus students.

Some of the subsequent precautions like disinfecting computers and using hand sanitizer have gone a long way in establishing a healthy environment for learning. Expanding the use of computer technology has made teacher/ student/parent interaction more efficient and goal effective. Even so, not all students had home access to the computers they needed to learn from and communicate with their instructors. Despite the inevitable hurdles, Adams' Academia is bustling with successful activity, especially since she became Dr. Adams.

"The reason I went to doctoral program was to learn how to establish community work which collaborates with others in the effort to bring forth social change," she says.

Adams' Academia melds into one overriding role the motives she seeks to achieve through her talents and overall abilities she has sharpened and used throughout her outstanding career. Besides, she is able to serve the greater community that encircles (and depends on) the vital scholastic system.

"The most important way the community can support Adams' Academia is by simply asking for services," she says.

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