Sometimes it seems that…

Sometimes it seems that every time I get close to catching up on work, the universe intervenes. It is VERY frustrating. A new set of deadlines, additional work added, a child crisis (generally urgent, but not serious), etc. and so on. I think the problem is that I was so far behind that there wasn't a lot of flex left in the system. But I spent the summer in a dedicated effort to catch up, and I am catching up, dammit. Even though I got sick around 4 yesterday and completely lost the rest of the day (which I had planned to spend working), I am still determined to catch up, come hell or high water.

Inbox zero, an empty urgent to-do list, (the less-urgent items will take years to finish, like 'write book', so those don't need to be disposed of quite so fast), etc. If I can actually get there, instead of being chronically behind the way I've been since Kavya was born (see, there's a reason there's less flex in the system, much as I adore my munchkins), then I'm hopeful that I can be more realistic, going forward, about how much I can actually get done, and not overbook myself so badly that I have to work nights and weekends, just to keep from going under. That's the goal.

Plan for today: Teach my class, catch up on grading over lunch, teach my other class, meet with a colleague, finish up all the tiny little leftover work web page edits, meet Kavi at bus, make doctor's appt. (routine, but overdue), rewrite editorial, replant the plant whose pot got mysteriously smashed (I suspect a child's handiwork), plant the mums I bought two weeks ago and which are starting to look a bit sad out in the yard, have piano lesson (for which I am seriously under-practiced as usual, sigh), have call with student at 5 and hopefully sign off for day at 6, having made some progress. And tomorrow, I start trying to fit exercise back into the daily schedule, which there hasn't been room for since school started in late August. We'll see how it goes.

(For those in a similar boat, the three things that have really helped me get out from under the onslaught are a) the E-mail Game, which got me to start really dealing with the e-mail backlog, b) trying very hard to first move items out of e-mail into the to-do list and then only keeping today's items on the today to-do list, instead of letting it be a catch-all for everything piling up which then made it very hard to face doing at all, and c) using the program Self-Control to keep myself off Facebook. Well, and not teaching a class this summer; the extra time was hugely useful, unsurprisingly.)

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