Another year is here and my family and I wish everyone a happy one filled with joy, happiness, health, and accomplishing all you set out to do. For my New Year’s resolution, I’ve decided to limit the distractions and attempt a better work-life balance. When I finally get home after a long day at the office, I really would love to relax. Yes, there are so many enjoyable diversions that tempt me to abandon the work I still need to complete. Susan Randolph in her article “The Importance of Employee Breaks,” relates how it’s healthy to take a break, reduce your stress, and re-energize yourself. Included in her paper are some strategies to incorporate breaks into your workday. My problem is, once on intermission, I can’t get back on track! Maybe it’s today’s technology that so mercilessly whisks me away to a world filled with wonder, barring the resumption of my responsibilities. Today I’d like to share with you some failures regarding finalizing my tasks and why your SDDS Bulletin this month is probably way overdue. Hold on a minute, I just noticed it’s getting late; we didn’t finish our duties, and the deadline is a few days away. On the other hand, you know how difficult it was today at the office—come on, we deserve it; why shouldn’t we watch some TV and unwind? Streaming the night away Okay, maybe I am wasting my money, but my family likes to have cable TV, so I have Spectrum with over 175 channels. The advent of Happy 2023! Staying the Course by: Stuart L. Segelnick, D.D.S., M.S., CDE, SDDS Bulletin Editor streaming services brought even more choices and how could you go wrong with some plans selling for under $10 a month? Plus, there always seems to be something exciting to see. No judging, but now I also have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Peacock Premium Plus, and HBO Max. Unfortunately, some nights I spend more time surfing the different services trying to find a show to enjoy than watching a show! Googling and other search engine mayhem There is a tremendous amount of information online. Acquiring accurate data takes a lot of effort and time. Using the myriad different search engines and repositories can lead to many tangents. In researching this part of the article, I spent half an hour trying to find the definitive number of search engines in the world. Using DuckDuckGo took me to this site which lists 500 search engines categorized by different factors: https://www. linksmanagement.com/500search-engines/. I spent many more hours trying them out, which of course did not help me finish this article, but was very fun for a back seat researcher like me! Social media meandering Many of my friends are on multiple social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat. I’m not sure how they do it, or how they can post and respond all the time! Good time to check on my own Facebook and LinkedIn pages to see what everyone is posting. After too much time scrolling past people’s shared life events and liking everyone, it was time pull myself away. Wait! Rich Oshrain had won the 10k Turkey Trot, probably in preparation for trotting all over the Javits Center as general chair of the Greater New York Dental Meeting. Now I’m really getting tired. Shopping virtually Does anyone shop in person anymore? My fire/carbon monoxide alarm started chirping at me in the middle of the night letting us know it needed to be replaced. Many years ago, in a time so far away, I would drive to Home Depot and search the aisles for a replacement. Today I’m exploring Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Staples. com, and Homedepot.com for the best price, including delivery charges. I find it much harder to purchase online than in person unless you know exactly what you want. Years ago, I tried to buy my wife some jewelry online. What looked so large on the screen turned out to be embarrassingly tiny. Make sure wherever you buy online has a no-cost return policy! Checking your stock portfolio Please don’t cry. Looking at anyone’s stock portfolio today could cause some deep depression as our post-COVID country battles inflation, and heads into recession. One of my patients recommended opening up a business or personal account at Treasurydirect.gov and buying treasury bills that mature in as quickly as four weeks at interest rates of about 4%. At the same site you can purchase a $10,000 I-bond for about 7% annual interest rate. I’m not going to waste a minute more on watching my stocks fall—or am I? Emails and messaging So many emails and only so many seconds in a day. With my inbox filling up so quickly, it’s a wonder I have any time to respond. Most of the time, I’m just deleting and wondering why the spam filter hasn’t flagged those junk emails. The biggest problem is the time it takes me to go through my spam folder to restore important correspondence that was pulled into the rip current of oblivion. No, I’m not ignoring you. I must have missed your email; so listen, if you haven’t received a response, please give me a call! Now you know some of the distractions I face every day. I‘m sure you have your own list of diversions and favorite virtual places to lose yourself in. However, by finishing this article, I feel somewhat vindicated that I found a way to stay centered, not lose my concentration and be able to bask in the joy of completing a task before the deadline. I hope your year is filled with perseverance and high production! WWW.SDDSNY.ORG 13
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