That's how most things go, right?
It's always going to take longer than you think it is.
Always increase your ETA by five minutes, even if you are staring down a GPS estimate on empty roads. You still need to park, get out of the car, grab your things, and walk into the building.
More buffer, more time, more work, always never enough...
It's tiring.
But you can also take advantage of this in positive little ways
"Set it and forget it" type tasks.
I pop my drink in the fridge when I take a bathroom break so it can cool down. A couple minutes in there means it'll only be noticeably cool for ten seconds after I take it out, but that one refreshing sip is worth it every time.
I plug my phone in immediately when I get back while I'm setting down all my stuff. Five minutes of charge before I start using it again isn't much, but it adds up.
Anytime you tell yourself "I don't have time to start that", yes you do. I can't count the number of times I've told myself it's not worth plugging in my charger, and then I look up two hours later from a book with my laptop still at 25% and realize I did.
Don't forget about the inverse. Never let the pot boil while you do that "one quick task", because it's going to burn.
Set a timer.
It'll go off sooner than you think.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
I managed to fit an entire extra errand in today on an extension of this logic, and I'm unreasonably pleased. Errands are the exact opposite of set and forget, but there was an unexpected gap in the schedule, and I realized everything around it would take so much longer than I expected that it didn't make a difference if I added a bit more delay by running off.
Errand is the wrong word, it technically counts but I didn't need to do it. Pure self indulgence.
I'm happy.
That's all you really need sometimes.
The whole point of those productivity things is to make more happy time, isn't it?
- Rew