What motivates you to excel?
Is it something intrinsic, or an external influence? To answer my own question, it simply takes interesting projects to motivate me to do good work. The trouble comes when there is no real work available.
Things have been very quiet in the Angus world. In consequence, things have been very quiet on this blog. With 2 genetic defects recently discovered in the Angus breed, the breeders have postponed their usual sales as they scramble to test their animals. Add a recession as the cherry on top and you have one very quiet company.
June and July are typically quiet months for this business anyhow. What makes it unbearable is the side projects drying up. Every summer and every quiet period between breeders’ sales, I have made a mad dash to work on or finish up a side project. They have varied from posting the sale books online efficiently to improving our web sites en masse to solving the Photo department’s cataloging issues to building prototype web apps to campaigning for improved Angus Journal and Angus e-Classifieds sites.
With no side projects to focus my energy on, the boredom is driving me up the wall. I like identifying high-level problems and solving them. There are plenty of problems left to solve, I just keep running into a wall of red tape and No! answers. My nose hurts and the last wall nearly broke my glasses. 
Since there aren’t any interesting projects going on, I’ll share a few good links instead:
- For recent graduates and anyone looking for an unconventional road to changing careers, try Recession Proof Your Career, by Charlie Hoehn [via I Will Teach You To Be Rich].
- If you’re looking for deep, thoughtful writing, try any of Paul Graham’s essays. Pick one at random. You won’t be disappointed.
- Inspiration and instructions on how to live simple.
