Highlighting

Marking what you’ve accomplished

Highlighting

It was nearing the end of the workweek and it just kept coming!  There were so many things out of my control.  I was watching the clock tick as the Federal Reserve wiring deadline loomed.  You’ve heard something similar.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

Even though there wasn’t really a clock ticking.  I could hear it.  My client could hear it.  The money for the purchase of his property was supposed to be wired to his title company the morning before.  Then is was to be wire at ten a.m. today, then eleven a.m., then eleven-thirty a.m.  Now it was two p.m. and still no wire!

I excused myself from a meeting when my screen lit up.  It was my anxious client.  I took the call.

“Any word yet?”  He asked.

“Nothing!’  I responded.

“We’re running out of time!” He said angrily.

“I understand.  There is nothing more I can do.  They’re working to get it completed.  I’m just leaving them alone now so I don’t interrupt their work.  As soon as I have word I’ll get back with you.”  I said in a calming manner.  “It will get done!”

I knew we had less than one half hour until the wiring deadline was upon us.  The ticking thumped in my head again.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick!

I walked back into my meeting feeling tense, worried and sad.  My hope for a positive outcome was fading.  I tried to tune the ticking out and reengaged in the meeting at hand. But, I still had one eye firmly entranced at my phone’s screen.

Just as the meeting was coming to an end, two-fifteen p.m., the display flickered to life!

“Signing now!”

I felt relief surge through my chest.   My fingers flew across the glass-like message surface.  I repeated the message to my waiting client.

Two twenty-nine p.m.  A flicker!

“Wire sent!”

I forwarded this message of success and then drove to my office where I sat at my desk to call the title company to check on the arrival of funds.  It was now just after three p.m.  The funds still hadn’t arrived.

“It’s Easter weekend so I guess things are a little slow at the Fed.” She said.

I didn’t hear from her again until after four p.m. as the escrow agent was in the process of getting everything together to disburse the received funds and record.  I was already on my way to her so I could sign some other documents for a different transaction.

When I arrived at about four thirty p.m. she was frantically working on the computer to finish the recording.  She jumped up to give me documents for signing.

“Don’t worry about me.”  I said.  “Just relax and finish what you’re doing.”

She finished just before five p.m. and the closing of the recorder’s office!  I signed the other documents and then slinked outside and into the seat of my car.  “What a wild and challenging couple of days!”  I said to myself.  Then I heard another tick, the tick of a memory.

My friend Shelly Tripp flashed in my mind and it was as if I could hear her say, “I highlight the things I’ve accomplished on my to do list.  That way I can see what I’ve done!”

Her convention of highlighting was exactly opposite of my own personal practice at the time.  And, for this week now in my rear view mirror, I realized that I had lapsed back in to that old personal habit.

Tick!

I began to reimagine the past week and ticked off the things I had accomplished one by one.  I drove toward my home ticking off the miles and highlighting the great things that had come to pass over a few significant and memorable days.