Hullo, friends. it is Tuesday! The day that we blog. Yes. I totally remembered that all day long! I remember which day it is on a regular basis!
Confession–I actually didn’t remember today was Tuesday. Because I’m on vacation. It’s so easy to forget, it seems–we’re two actual days into the workweek I’m not working, and I forgot what day it was! Which is even harder to believe I managed, because–well, let me show you.
Going into the summer, I had no intention of taking a week off. I had the hours, but I didn’t have any money to go anywhere, and we’re still being careful anyway. Might as well just save the time off till I had something useful to do with it, right?
Well, but my admin team was taking a week off. I would still have plenty to do–there is ALWAYS more to do–but I’d be going to work every day, and they wouldn’t. I’d probably end up not doing much but answering the phones and being mad at myself for not having taken the week off. So I took it. At least, I thought, I can get some things done.
Ah, yes. That age-old goal of adults everywhere, to Get Some Things Done.
I made a list. I collected notes from here there and everywhere, and I brainstormed, and I wrote a lot of things down, and then I put some of them on post-its. And then I put them on my whiteboard. And still I moved them a lot.
Like, from Saturday to Sunday. From Sunday to Monday.
Okay, I still haven’t made it to the gym. I’m going to go tomorrow, though.
Yeah. Tomorrow. See? It’s right there, on the list. It has been migrating through the days, I’ll admit. I’m almost as quick to shove it off another day as to shove calling the IRS back.
Can you blame me? It’s the IRS.
I really had no intention of taking the week off even though my admin team was, but my principal kind of hinted that I really should. Never one to ignore a hint from the boss, I did. And honestly, it’s been a gift. I could have gone to work every day and still gotten all a lot some a little of this stuff done, but I would have been grumpy and tired and resentful. Instead I’m happily productive in the morning, happily UNproductive in the afternoon, and then I get my creative engine going in the evenings, to continue my editing. (Oh lork, the editing. It just goes on and on my friends. Some writer started doing it, not knowing how it ends, and–AAAAHHHHH!!)
(Sorry.)
Ahem.
The whiteboard list is good, because it keeps me big-picture. But sometimes I need to think about what to do when, and then the post-its come in. (I have, apparently, finally granted myself permission to use just exactly as many post-its as I need, to do what I need to do.)
Focus is hard sometimes, especially when I’m not sure what is the best thing to do NOW, and then it’s really easy for me to just not decide–to instead fall into something interesting and come up for air and realize I just blew three hours on some random research I may use in my writing someday, maybe. So when I’m not sure what to do and I know that makes me vulnerable to chasing shiny objects, I’ll try to plan out the next three things to do, and then the next three–like in the upper right, take pills, brush teeth, start coffee. When the coffee was started, I added get dressed, necklace and earrings, get coffee. That’s some next level planning right there. But hey. Eventually I will probably maybe definitely write “go to the gym” on a post-it, and then it will be done.
Yep.
(To be clear, I want to go to the gym! That’s why I joined! I’m just having some trepidation. I’ve been hiding at home for over a year. Being out in public is weird.) (And to make sure I do go to the gym, I just signed up for a class tomorrow! Ha! So there!)
Am I the only one finding it really odd and uncomfortable to have to go Do Things now?
When things started locking down, we locked down. And I, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, let everything go. Now there’s so much I need to do, that has spent the last year and more waiting… So I’m taking it easy. I’m making lists, and if I run out of energy, I bump stuff to later. Or I don’t do it. Or I delegate it. I’m trying to enjoy my vacation, after all. Because HOLY WOW did I need it and not even know it.
So how’s your summer going?