Sunday, February 24, 2008

Regarding the Nagging To Do List

While I'm not complaining from a "spring is rapidly approaching" standpoint, can you believe it's the end of February already? Time to write the rent check again. My apologies for the lack of posts this past week, I've been slowly succumbing to whatever it is that was taking out the children's department one by one. Having now, since Friday evening, had about 24 hours of sleep and a totally lazy day yesterday, I feel much more like a person and less like a zombie.

A new year always brings on resolutions. Whether we consciously make them or not, we each take on the spirit of new. The year stretches before us as a clean slate. It's time to let go of things that didn't work in the last year, set aside what came before, and face another daunting 300+ shopping days until Christmas. Then suddenly, magically, it's February and we're reeling from how "life" kicked in and those tasks we set before us suddenly seem a lot less possible than they did on January 1. Or perhaps that's just me--still staring at an apartment I've not finished unpacking, a children's series I keep thinking I'll write, four databases that require attention, and an ironing board that isn't speaking to me because I've been using it as a catch-all flat surface.

It's easy to get into a similar rut at work--settling comfortably into the routine of desk time, story time and the various after school programs. For me, it's meant that my desk has slowly been disappearing under various journals that I should be ordering from, or at the very least perusing and passing onwards to others. Last week I started refocusing on those growing piles--mostly because the February journals started landing on my desk and I needed to pass on the January ones yet. I also was tasked by another freelance database designer to get myself in gear and learn MySQL. He's wiling to help and to nudge on a regular basis and make sure I'm not letting it go by the wayside. Consequently I've got the Dummies book on it and will be wading through the tutorial available here.

I'm list, nagging and goal oriented--so I'm going to work today not only on tidying my apartment and working on my databases, but making myself a list. This one will just be for home and will have some manageable goals on it: write for 15 minutes, get the ironing done (only about a hour's worth), pick out a pattern and cast on for the baby project that needs to be done in a couple of weeks, weave in the ends of the projects finished for my next trip to NY. What reward I'll promise myself is unclear yet--but it will probably have to do with yarn or some books that are in my amazon shopping cart. Tomorrow, I'm going to try and make better use of Outlook's task function and set some goals with reminders there. Also, I'll schedule a few meetings with that motivator (who conveniently works with me!).

It's no longer a brand new year but if the half frozen birds are convinced it's going to be spring, I'm going to think forward to warmth and growth--rather than the current frozen state of affairs.

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