Friday, April 22, 2011

Frantic Friday

A busy day today. I got up at a run and stayed that way for most of the day. I vacuumed my house, washed the dishes, dusted the furniture, washed three loads of laundry, made out some bills, went to the post office and mailed the bills, worked on my budget, worked on the family newsletter, swept my front porch again (winds had covered it in leaves, dirt, and twigs) and generally did a lot of my 20 List, which has morphed into a 36 item list, but I'm going to keep calling it the 20 List.

It seems to me that the biggest threat to my productivity is my lack of focus. I'll start one task, see another one that needs to be done and start it, go back to the first task, but get distracted from it by a third task, and so on and so on. Eventually I get them all done, but sometimes a time-critical task suffers from this divided attention.

The 20 List helps with that. I look at the list, pick out a task, and do that activity until the task is finished. Then I cross it off the list and pick another task. Sounds simple, but it sure has helped my productivity.

This evening we are having really bad storms so I'm typing this on my laptop and have turned my desktop off and unplugged it in case of power surges. So far the Internet connection has stayed up. We're having high winds, rain, and hail, but no tornadoes, although a couple touched down a town near us. Power has flickered a couple of times, but so far so good.

We desperately needed the rain, but could do without winds and hail. Well, you take the good with the bad, and that's true in weather and life.

Tomorrow will be the local writers' club meeting at the library. I plan on attending. The group has been around for a while, but recently has been revitalized. I'm hoping it turns into an useful organization. I've enjoyed the presentations so far, and it's always nice to get with fellow aspiring writers and compare notes.

It's really raining hard outside now. The hail is mostly pea size, although the weatherman on Channel 4 said there had been golf ball sized hail in other places near here. Hope we don't get any of that. Although now that I'm not working in insurance, I don't have to dread the day after bad weather the way I used to -- when a lot of claims would be filed.

Gonna close now. Talk to you tomorrow. Hope things are going well for you and yours.

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Know what you mean about focus. Glad the List 20 helps out. Will give it a shot.

SBB said...

Hope it helps, Joel.