Here I am on my second, not-working Tuesday. I got a little concerned with myself yesterday. OK, so yes, I did good things. My friend got me on the river to kayak and I got into the pool with the puppygirls. Trying to teach Etta not to jump on heads and drown every other living thing also trying to swim! In the evening I went to hip-hop. LOVE to dance!
The problem was I could count the ‘productive’ stuff I did on one hand. And, yes, I like to be able to say I have accomplished something in a day. And, yes, I am more than a little neurotic about it, but curse it, I had plans to get things DONE this summer!
This morning I got up and started on the basement. Our basement is scary. There is stuff from the old place we lived 17 years ago. There is stuff from my parents’ home and my husband’s parents’ home. We threw it in the basement until we got around to it. Apparently, today is “around to it”.
I worked for three hours. My husband has a pile as high as my waist to pass judgment on. There is a lot more to be done.
My problem becomes now how to get back to it. I am not used to doing my own time management. I suspect those of you who have had to pull back from jobs, etc, due to your vision loss (or whatever reason) might have the same problem. What do I do to make sure all this spare time is spent well?
Back to Wikipedia!
Wikipedia defines time management as “the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.” Sounds good. How do we accomplish that?
Here we go. Set an environment conducive to effectiveness. Prioritize and following through. Don’t spend a lot of time on non-priorities. Use incentives with yourself.
Wikipedia goes on to say we need to triage our work. What is important and needs to get done? Then we need to protect our time by insulating, isolating and delegating. There needs to be an emphasis on motivation and movement away from bad habits like procrastination.
In other words, I probably should not be writing this page right now. My priority should be looking over my lesson plan for tomorrow. Triage. I should put this tablet out of sight while I am reviewing my notes. I should remind myself my motivation is high because I don’t want to look like a dunce tomorrow. I should move away from saying it can be done AFTER my swim….uh, wait a minute.
They also talk about gravitational goals. Gravitational goals have a lot of ‘pull’ and just seem to flow along one after the other. For example, it is a beautiful, sunny day. The pool is blue. The puppygirls want to swim and will then nap, allowing me some undisturbed time.
Sounds like enough pull to me! Caio!
Written June 19th, 2018