Billable Hour Watch 2007

I’m at 139.1, which means that I need to put in thirty-one more hours this week.  No, that will not bring my total for the month to the magic 220 I was shooting for, but it will put me at 170 for the month, which (considering the Thanksgiving holiday and my trip to D.C.) will not be too shabby.

What that will mean, though, is that for the month of December, it will be essential that I focus on work.  I have 22 days in the month of December (including all but the first Saturday) in which to bill my little heart out.  If I were so insane as to bill 12 hours per day for each of those days, I could get 264 out of the month, which would still put me behind by about 8 hours. 

Here’s the thing:  I hated the month of October.  I didn’t go anywhere because I was working.  I felt burned out most of the time, and I crashed and burned during November, in part, because of the lack of sleep and the sense that I was just flat out not going to reach my goal.  Do I really want to make December, “the most wonderful time of the year,” a gloomy and Scroogish time, particularly since I’m not going to be at my parents’ house at all? 

On the other hand, if I don’t have a job next year because I didn’t make my quota, it will be a gloomy and Scroogish year, instead of just a gloomy and Scroogish month. 

Plus, I have been asked to go to Hungary next year – the week after Easter – to do a fact-finding trip for my church.  It’s a group thing – I’m not going alone - and they’re paying the freight.  I will have to work a lot ahead of time so that I can go and not worry about falling behind. 

I keep coming back to this thought:  do the next thing.  Until something else comes along, this is the life I have.  I can choose to be miserable and focus on all I don’t have or can’t do, or I can focus on the positives.