Posted on 10/28/2003 11:59:02 AM PST by ancientart
Shelley was extremely glad she had attended the eye-opening seminar last month because here she was in bed, awake before the alarm clock blared, and would otherwise be at a total loss.
Step one: Place your hands near your ears.
Step two: Make fists.
Step three: Rub fists over eyes.
Step four: Carefully lift lids, then shut quickly.
Step five: Again lift lids. Shut more slowly.
Step six: Lift lids. Blink three times.
She did it! Her eyes were opened! That Dr. Halfenbalk and his excellent eye-opening technique were wonderful!
Shelley sat up in bed. So much to do. She reached for her time-management chart. 7:28. Time to shower.
Oh no! She had passed up the shower-taking conference in May and now she was in trouble. Should she arrange her clothes on the bed first, or brush her teeth or place a towel near the sink? If she went to the trouble of arranging her clothes, she might get distracted and forget the towel altogether.
Oh, why hadn't she gone to the conference! It was only $20, and she wouldn't be in such a quandary now.
She decided to arrange the clothes first.
Fortunately, her green turtleneck was right where it belonged and ready to wear. The Laundry-Ladder Organizational Workshop had paid off again! But where were her socks? Oh. Now she remembered. She had spilled coffee on her feet yesterday. She needed to use today's socks then.
The sock substitution threw off a whole week's worth of organizing. Sigh.
After her shower, Shelley dressed and went to make coffee.
Fortunately, her purpose-driven coffee preparation technique was very effective, and her pre-measured grounds were waiting in the filter next to her pre-measured water in the carafe.
She looked at her watch. 8:05. Her time management chart said she should be reading the paper. She hurried to the paper, skipped over the comics and scoured the classifieds. She had learned to be an effective newspaper reader from her Speed Reading for Sophisticates class. She got the essentials. That was what counted.
She grabbed a bagel. Shelley had integrated true, highest-potential bagel awareness with the importance of the nine circles of bagel-eating success. She had mastered Module 8 of the bagel-eating organizational performance management pyramid. The bagel was gone in seconds!
She brushed the crumbs from her shirt with appropriate strategical focus combined with simplicity in organizational attitude and tactful sensitivity.
8:15. She brushed out her hair according to the Hair-is-a-Game Mediational Advancement Workshop. She bargained with her hair, obtained commitments from it, designed a game plan for it and finally exerted authority over it - all with stress-reducing, breathing techniques and mind-centering maneuvers.
The phone rang. Could she please bring cookies to the parents meeting? She held her breath. She tried to remember the workshop that taught her how to say no without seeming to be mean. Was it the Women's Roundtable on Assertiveness? The Self Esteem Builders Saturday Seminar? The Effective Self-Protection Retreat?
"Hold on," she said as she wracked her brain. What was it she was supposed to do? She had no time to make a cookie plate! Surely someone else could make a cookie plate. Finally, she muttered something unintelligible into the phone and hung up.
That wasn't what she was supposed to do, she was sure. But it worked!
Suddenly, gears began to turn in Shelley's head, gears put in place by the Market-Your-Hidden-Talents, Financial Genius symposium.
Why not? She could see it now. The Unintelligible Muttering Technique of Asserting Yourself clinic. She could charge $20 per conferee!
Before she could even consult her time management chart and see that she was three minutes late for work, she was planning out the color of the tablecloths at the Unintelligible Technique luncheon and designing the cover of her best-selling Unintelligible Technique book.
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