Of Deadlines and Time Management

            I’m a week behind on thank you notes; 4 days behind on blogs. I’ve got cookbooks on backorder and friends I’m longing to see; but when deadlines loom, all else goes back burner…(Not the best of organizational planning, but mine for now. And  it needs help.)

           In between, I’m keenly aware that before any of this, there are goats to fee, dogs to walk, water buckets to clean….a litany of farm chores that come before anything else (living things come first; at least we got that priority straight). In short, today I feel like that frog in the boiling pot: no one small increase in the heat caught my attention, but then days like today –BOOM. It’s boiling and you start asking, “How’d this happen?”

            I keep telling myself, “Soon and very soon—help is on the way!” (though several of those afore mentioned things need completing first to keep that proposition in check). Some days it’s a vicious cycle; some days you wonder if you could jump off the merry-go-round even if you wanted to. 

            Challenge is, no one part of it alone would do you in. To the contrary, each individual, incremental project is doable and worthy of a full blown plan. It’s just that somewhere along the way, I forgot that taking on a new one, might mean slowing down or letting go entirely of another. (Instead, each new one in this scenario, only enhanced the efforts of all the others…preferably with more people involved to help out as we go forward.)

Case in point: a garden alone is a full time job. I started this little gardening proposition for the sake of a cookbook. Now I have a garden AND a cookbook, either of which is a full time job unto itself. (Thank God it’s fall.) Now that I’m in love with all my garden represents: the healing, the growing…the sustainability, the spiritual element, perhaps it's time to inventory those things going on in the rest of my life I might consider pulling back on to allow proper time for this new addition come next season. (Good in theory: instead, I'm adding gardening courses to the mix, hopeful to work with others who know more about gardens willing to network us all into more community minded propositions.)

            These are the thoughts I awakened to on a Saturday that has a “to do” list longer than most of my Mondays. When you get to the bottom, “Quit digging” they say. But if digging’s all you know, that’s easier said than done.

TGIF! (Of Deadlines and Runner's Highs)

           Half the reason I love a deadline (if not the whole reason) is for the relief that comes in the seconds, minutes, hours (and if you stretch it…entire weekends) that follow~

            I once dated a marathon runner. Personally, I’m not into this kind of thing; got no gene for it. Just watching him train wore me out, though I did marvel at the commitment (if not the insanity) that drove him to head off in the pre-dawn hours of bitter cold winter to get his training runs in. I had heard there was this thing called a “runner’s high” …some zone they claim you hit where everything is surreal and endorphins surge your brain. Perhaps if there was a drug-like state to be attained, it made more sense. Maybe he knew something I didn’t. Hitting euphoria was the only reason I could imagine that you’d even consider a thing like running.

            But according to him, runner’s highs are myth. “The only high in running when you hit the door” I recall him saying.

            If that’s the case and the only fun in running is not doing it anymore…well, thanks for the info pal. Count me out!

            But I DO understand about getting to completion. Tasks completed. Check lists checked. These mini moments bring their own mini highs and those of us with ADD live for such joys…Little bursts of endorphins! Little silent “atta girls”… Don’t know a thing about runner’s highs, but I live for deadlines met…and weeks well spent. I for one mean it literally when I type the letters TGIF, for I DO thank God and I DO love Fridays!

            Such was my day. Such was my week.

            Granted, it was a short one (which often trips you up) but for the 4 days that remained, we covered a lot of turf. Tackling the last of the Friday meetings (a full day in the city with lawyer lunches and printing press powwows) brought great relief. Nothing like a good and productive day, after which,  I clicked my heels three times and said, “There’s no place like home…There’s no place like home!” (And then Dorothy and her little dog, Toto said “Bring on the weekend!”)