For twenty odd years, and a handful of good ones, I've owned a one-man (that would be me) graphic design studio: BoldPrint. My work has ranged from the mundane--such as legal forms--to the exotic--including package design that has appeared around the globe. I've seen my work in stores, on billboards, in magazines, on television, in the homes of family and friends. Fun stuff.

The mundane, including a well-known line of blank legal forms, required expert--meaning fast--typing skills. Unfortunately, my aptitude at the keyboard is accompanied by a polarity of bad news and good news. The bad news is that I'm not exactly a "touch typist"; the good news is that if frostbite were to one day take a couple of fingers from each hand, my typing speed will not be diminished.

Many years ago, before I developed a degree of competency as an amateur typist, I sought to enlist the help of that maven of the keyboard, Ms. Mavis Beacon. I'd push through her prescribed exercises, cardio for the fingers; but I'd ultimately have to return to work under the auspices of that taskmaster of design: Mr. Hard Deadline. There was no time to inject my evolving skills into the job; instead, I'd have to surrender the underdeveloped methods of Ms. Beacon and retreat to the bad form that--nevertheless, short term--remained my best option of meeting the deadline.

And so, Ms. Beacon was eventually, regrettably, dismissed. It really wasn't her fault. She just couldn't convince me to give precedent to the important, long-term benefit over the pressing, short-term demand.

Stephen Covey called it the "Tyranny of the Urgent."

In Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy flees the cave just ahead of the monstrous boulder bearing down on his back. I'm curious, what's the boulder represent from your life and work?

How might you move from a place of reactive to proactive thinking and behavior? To trade faster and harder for more deliberate and smarter? Think small, initial steps.

What's the risk in trading a short-term patch for a long-term, strategic solution? How might the risk be diminished?

What's possible, right now, that might move you out of the path of the boulder?