Jorg's Brain Log

After my first workweek at Copaco it’s time again to add some other blocks to my schedule again. I almost took a complete week off from all my other activities to get a focus on a good start last week. Now that I’m in the 40 hour work week again (I’ve got to talk with Timothy Ferris about this one), it’s time to start with some other stuff again.

The most important one for me is writing! Actually I did write a lot last week, but that was mostly Copaco related. So I’ve got some catching up to do again. Oh well, no problem about that! Inspiration is fully here.

All my writing is going pretty well, except for one blog, Life Skills. Maybe that’s because the book I’m writing is about that subject and I don’t want to publish too much about this already. Or maybe just a lack of time or interesting subjects? Anyway, it’s time again to renew my commitment and downsize my plan to update Life Skills from 7 times a week to 3 times a week. A more noble schedule, with more time and subjects to put into my book.

The book is actually coming along pretty well. Some topics need research and some more time, but the outline is getting there! I guess my first draft of the book will be done around january 2010 and at the moment I’m guessing the book will be around 200 pages thick, a4 style. Pretty happy with the content outline.

My favorite topics to write about stay the same most of the time: Sports, ICT, Business and Life Skills. My personal writings on this blog or more like a public diary and really for ‘entertainment purposes’ only. I guess I easily stay above the 1000 words a day minimum I set myself. I wish I had a word counter that could measure all the words automatically I did on a day. Any suggestions?

The first week at Copaco is over again. It has been a very intense week, absorbing information like a sponge and getting to know many new people. For the next 2 weeks it will be more about the same, but as things have to get done, it’s also time to start planning and prioritizing in the next week.

One of the things I was a little bit afraid of was the fact I would be working from a business office again. full time! That’s been a while. 2007 was the last time I had a fixed desk, but even not 40 hours per week. Last time I was in the same office for 40 hours a week was in…. pffff…. oh yeah! Atos Origin time frame, around half way 2004. That’s 5 years ago.

The last months I worked mostly from my home office and it worked pretty well. But to be honest, this week 40 hour workweek at the same location (with the exception of visiting the location Nijmegen on Thursday morning), meant a very high productivity week. Starting early to get a head-start and between the meetings some serious information absorption.

My conclusion after a week of office work: if you’ve got a good workplace, you can achieve very high productivity. The difference between working from home and from the office is clear. Concentration and focus is the key benefit in here. No distraction from other private related stuff and a real getting things done mentality.

Time for the weekend and adding a block to the schedule.

After my announcement of Monday that I would be joining Copaco as their ICT manager, I’ve got some questions from friends about my own company and its future. In short I will outline what I’m using it for.

Dyrion will still exists but not for my normal ICT projects anymore. Dyrion is taking care of my business activities like speaking engagements and my writing projects. Also it’s my investment company for some long-term (business) investments (my pension and holder of some deposited brand names.

Of course Dyrion is also holder of the Shark brand that has focused completely on their sport based activities that will be cleared in the near future.

The website of Dyrion will be restyled in the coming weeks to make  the change more clear to its customers.

Today is the first day of my new job as ICT manager at Copaco. Copaco is an distributor of mainly ICT equipments and is active in the Benelux and France. There are around 370 employees working here.

My job consists of taking responsibility of the complete ICT infrastructure and the teams supporting it: System Management, E-Business, Web Development and Software Development.

The first 100 days on the job are already planned with a general plan to get things done and especially to get to know the culture and people who are working there.

Besides the fact that I really look forward working here, another convenience is that the company is less then a kilometer away from my home address. So no more traffic jams and long working travels.

Now that the final building block is filled, I can do some serious planning again in the coming weeks. More about that later on.

At the beginning of this  week I was saying that I was still missing one building block before I could share my next plan for the coming months. I’m glad to say that the last building block is done and signed for! I really got the feeling that a lot of my actions of the last time have come together again in such a way that it shows me a clear path again. This together with the confirmation it gives me that I’m going in the right direction, gives me a lot of energy and passion to continue!

It also has given me the right motivation to publish again! I’ve got aroundd 1500 words of text lined up and I’m busy making blog posts about them for my different blogs (and book). So if you only read my blogs through a RSS reader, watch the date! Because some news is old news, but I publish it backwards with the correct date.

So, expect exciting stuff on Monday!

The last few days has been very very hot here in the Netherlands. So between my business appointments I try to find time to relax with the family as well. A few days ago, we visited the fair with the family. It is such a pleasure to play around with the kids. And when I have enough and want to go home, it is pretty easy as well: we just do a game were they can win a toy and as soon as they have the toy in their hands they want to go home and play with it. Children are great! And now that I think of it: some adults have the same behavior as well…

Tuesday I managed to squeeze in a complete day off from work as well, so we went visting my friend and business partner Mario and his family who were on vacation in the south of the Netherlands. The kids played together, we had some nice water time. We talked, laughed and ate some pancakes and at the end of the day the children were tired as it can be. Nice to have such days with good friends! Time to get back to work…

I had planned for some time to publish my next plans, but due to circumstances one important piece is still missing, which I hope to finish this week. So I delay that post for a week and come back to that later on.

In the mean time I try to start up again. It seems I hit my first small writers block at the moment. Or to be more precise: Writing is not the problem! Publishing is. Making the layout of the text and finding inspiring and corresponding images is costing too much energy now.

The day after the big challenge was a real rest day! My legs and body hurted so much from the run at the mountain, we decided to keep it easy and just enjoy the sun, the pool and some books. It’s amazing how much I’ve read during this small vacation. 4 books, around 1300 pages, that’s about 200 pages a day. Nice. I feel smart again.

Yesterday we arrived at Kos Airport, and I think it was the biggest mess I’ve ever seen at an airport. From the bus to check-in was around 1:15 hour! Vacansoleil, our travel company, completly messed thhis up. The tour  leaders were just a bunch of sheep, talking to each other. Well, you can’t expect too much from a few 18-20 year old girls, who are trying to have a work vacation for themselves.

It’s easy to loose temper in such mess at an airport. All the waiting lines can make you go crazy! And the problem is, that you don’t have anything to look forward too as well, because you’re flying home instead to vacation. Oh well, breath in, breath out!

All in all I was very glad with this holiday, which I got as a gift from my girlfriend! I was very glad that we were situated outside Kos city. While there were way too many dutch people walking around and too little freediving in the sea, we had a good hotel with good food, a nice room, good weather and each other. So mission accomplished!

Not the way how I would treat a dog in 40 degrees sun!

We’ve been taking it very easy the last 2 days. Lot of sun bathing and reading. Just finished 3 books, around 1000 pages already and still got 1 book to go.

Yesterday was an interesting day. After the bike ride up the hill I’ve set my mind to climbing the big mountain behind our hotel. Helle was not so interested! So I put on my running gear and took a bottle of water, camera and watch and told Helle that if I would not be back at 20:00 to call the National Guard!

At 17:55 I left the hotel for the big run. But after 10 meters I decided to spare the energy and walk up and run down. The sun was still shining very hard, so I had to take it easy with only half a liter of water. After 40 minutes of steep walking up the only person I encountered was an old lady of around 140 years old, who apparently never sees anyone at that point of the mountain. When the dogs started barking she looked at me and immediately locked her house. I’ve got to work on my people skills.

It’s very strange how the top of a mountain can seem so nearby and be so far away in reality! So I told to myself to walk until 19:00 hours so I had another hour to go back down! And of course at 19:00 hours I thought I was almost there and walked a little bit further. After 5 minutes of walking I came at a stop. I reached a sign that said very clearly not to go further and not to take pictures. Before getting some angry Greek Soldier pointing stuff at me I decided it was best to stop at this point.

View from the top! See the small boats in the harbor.

After 1 hour and 10 minutes of walking upwards I was pretty tired. So I took a small 5 minute break at the top, drank some water, took my Shoes off, and looked at my watch. It was already 19:10 and had only 50 minutes to get back. Of course the way down would be a lot easier! So I ran down, but noticed pretty soon that with 110 kilo’s on your body that going down goes very easy! So easy in fact I had to turn on the brakes all the time. So constant pressure on my quadriceps, calves, my whole body.

After 10 minutes I was so exhausted, I thought of walking again. But I’ve learned from myself that when I stop running, it is very hard to start again. So I decided to hold on and continue. I ran down without any stops in 35 minutes, which was half the time to get up, and it was one of the most heaviest things I have ever done! I dropped in the hotel room pretty exhausted and drank a few liters of water and took a very cold shower.

Afterwards it was already dinner time. And after dinner we went to the city, but I was so tired it didn’t take long before I was in bed again. The next morning I had muscle pain everywhere! I almost couldn’t walk down the stairs to the restaurant and tripped a few times. So today was a very very easy day, with some light swimming to get my legs going again. Why am I doing things like this again?

The hotel has a great service. For 5 euro they bring you to the harbor were you can enjoy a nice boat trip including drinks and food and in the end of the day they bring you back as well. So we decided to go and try this little trip.

The boat set direction for a very small Turkish Island where it would harbor itself in the shallow waters near the shore, so that we could snorkel and swim to the island. Finally the freediving gear came out of the bag!

I jumped in the water, which was around 5 meters deep, and was pretty disappointed to see only a Sandy bottom and only very small fish. I snorkeled around and hoped for something better than this, but unfortunately this was not the case.

So the fins went back into the bag and I did some regular swimming with my goggles and swam under the boat a few times, which was the most exciting thing to do. Lunch and drinks on the boat was excellent and everybody was having a good time. I guess I’m just too spoiled with my underwater experiences, because everybody was having a good time.

The way back was went with the stream and wind, so unlike to way to the island were a lot of people got seasick, including Helle, it was much more relaxing. After 1 hour trip back we arrived at the harbor and got a transfer back to the hotel. Good day spent! It seems the only thing I will get here is a tan, and not spectacular underwater shots!