I read a little story the other day that really resonated with me and made me take a long hard look at how I live my life.

I want to share it with you

“There was once a busy shepherd girl, she spent her days rounding up stray sheep – her farther had taught her that if she focused on the strays the sheep would be safe.

One day her sister went out to the pasture to help her with the endless task, The sister asked - do all the sheep stray?

No answered the shepherd only 16 ever stray.

Why don’t you build a little fenced area in one section of the pasture for those 16 – than you’ll never have to chase strays again.

She followed her sister’s advice and the shepherd used her time watching the docile sheep and trading commodity futures by cell phone and increased the family fortune manifold.

This solution allowed her to achieve 20 times as much in the same amount of time with much less effort.

So I began to ask myself a few questions regarding how I spent my time last year.

1. What did I learn to do better?

2. Which activities take up more of my time than I would like

3. Do I allocate enough time to enjoy family and friends

4. What would I like to be doing but don’t find time for

5. Can I think of solutions to make MUCH faster progress in any of these areas.

I sat down with a pad and pencil and started to write lists - what I discovered was quite amazing.

As a photographer I spend hours and hours processing and editing images - if I come home from an event with around 800 – 1200 images it means I have at least 2 full days work on the computer to get the pictures ready to up load to my web site.

This is an area where I could certainly use a very creative solution

My options - were

a. take less pictures – to reduce processing time

b. Employ someone to help me

c. Post all the images on the web site “as is”

d. Buy and learn “Apature” a pro editing software program that many wedding photographers use

So now I have not only a few options but also a choice of solutions

I am going to go with D and buy and learn the new software.

But there are lots of other areas of my business - that I will apply the same method to.

Maybe the story of the shepherd girl is one you can identify with - it certainly struck a cord with me.