As usual, I’ve got about eight things in mid-process on my desk right now – a bunch of five-minute jobs, a couple that are small but will take a little longer, and one that will take a chunk of time.
I keep looking at one of the five-minute jobs and thinking, “I should run that over to Denise.” Then I think, “No, because she’ll need X to do that, and for her to have X, I need to do Y; but before I do Y, I’ve really got to do Z.”
And I’ve gone through the exact same analysis three times and come up with the same result – but then I completely forget about thinking it through, so I’ll once again look at the five-minute job and thinK, “I should run that over to Denise.”
And instead of doing Z, so I can do Y, so I can get X to Denise – I’m posting about it.
I’ve recently begun making lists. Lots of lists. Writing it all down helps me organize and get things in the right order, but more importantly frees me from the stress of constantly running through things in my head, worrying that I’m going to forget something.
As an added side benefit, once everything’s written down, it always seems like there’s a lot less work than when I was chasing my mental tail trying to remember everything.
I have a tidy, well-organized list of things I’m supposed to be doing right now, in fact. Posting to message board is not on it. Must be an oversight . . .
Oh great – next you’ll be telling me that having unsorted stacks of stuff thrown willy-nilly all over the desk, and the side table, and the other desk, is not conducive to efficiency!
If I have stuff to do on a list and do it all then I have nothing to do. If I scatter it willy nilly all over my office and have to root around for stuff, then I always got something to do. It’s all root and do, root and do all day. That way I’m busy all day and always have stuff to do. Isn’t that what work’s all about anyways?
Have you ever had one of those days when work isn’t too busy, the boss is away so there are no imaginary crises to deal with, the computer doesn’t crash and you finish everything a little early so you take off on a beautiful afternoon and beat the rush hour traffic, getting all the green lights, then you get home, order in a pizza and relax with a good book or a favorite movie and finally go to bed and have a peaceful night of sleep?