Sometimes I don't remember to cook dinner until my stomach is grumbling. When that happens, I'm too hungry to focus on cooking.
I will burn something if I try.
So I eat some chips or other snacks while I start hauling things out of the fridge.
I eat chips 30 minutes before dinner.
Sometimes I have a big deadline coming up.
There's always half dozen little things which should but don't need to get done around the same time.
Standard advice is to get the big thing done first, and move the little things around it. Do them as a break, do them when you can't do the big thing, do them after the big thing.
Good, reasonable advice.
But if I follow it, I will start the big thing but never get the big thing done. I'll keep remembering all the other things that need to be done eventually.
So I do the little things.
Can't be distracted by them if they're done.
Once a month I get the urge to do clean and repair everything. Vacuum the floor, wash the sheets, tape up tears, patch holes in shirts and clip loose threads.
Obviously, you should start the dishwasher and the laundry machine first, because they take the longest to run.
But that's so much work.
I'm going to to handwash my desk water cup first.
Maybe grab a snack too. It's going to make a mess.
Whatever.
Sometimes I spend a day ignoring the outside world and a stack of messages and emails pile up.
Maybe a third is automated notifications, half is check-in type messages which need a sentence or two of reply, and a few require actual effort.
In simpler terms, non-urgent unimportant, urgent unimportant, urgent important.
You've brushed up on your Eisenhower matrix, right? The order is obvious.
But, all I want in that moment is to make the number go down.
Chips first.
When unloading grocery bags, obviously one should do the frozen items followed by the refrigerated items followed by the pantry items.
But grocery bags are heavy and I bought myself a treat while I was at the store.
You know how this goes.
Chips first,
- Rew
Nightly Notes
Sniped by a silly idea at the last minute again. This was fun.
Maybe I'm better off not having a backlog if this is the result.
Then again, I'm starting to have days where I write about something and need to check what has actually been published to see if I'm repeating myself or just cannibalizing an old draft.
The discard pile grows larger.
- Rew