A Semi-Successful Day

 Today did not feel particularly successful, but looking at what I did objectively, I can see a lot of improvement over past unsuccessful days. 

My motivation was low. This may be because I only got 6 hours of sleep, or it may be because I had a few big tasks that lacked definition on the plan rather than small, straightforward things to do. 

The goals were:

• Strip the bedding
• Wash & dry all the bedding during the day (a few loads)
• Wash some brushes I had used for polyurethane
• Put new glazing putty in one of our windows
• If time permits, work on cleaning up a wooden tray I bought to refinish
• Make dinner

I was able to get all the bedding washed and dried by mid-afternoon, so we can re-make the bed this evening. That was the most urgent thing to get done today, and I achieved it. Yay!

I also washed the polyurethane brushes, adding to that washing all the dishes in the sink beforehand (there weren't very many) and some fresh fruit I bought this week. Yay!

After that, I got bogged down. I was hungry and ended up having a longish grazing lunch during which I watched YouTube videos. I didn't get going on the window project until 2, where I had thought I would be starting on it by 11. My hesitancy came from a few things--I haven't worked with glazing putty since October, so I wasn't sure if I remembered all the steps correctly. I had to drag out the folding extension ladder because the chosen window is over steps, so that's a hassle. And I thought I might not have enough putty to even finish that window, so success was not a given. 

I got into the project a little way and determined that more glazing putty needed to be replaced than I had originally thought, and that the little I had left wouldn't be enough. I considered putting putty on only two panes, using up what I had, but it has to be painted after 2-3 days, and it would be awkward to have two panes of a window on a different painting schedule than the rest of the window. So I decided to call it quits on that project until I get more putty. 

It was around 3:30 at that point, and I decided to work on the wooden tray. This tray was originally part of a wood toy play set, but I found it for sale by itself at Goodwill. It's just the right size for our spice cabinet, which needs something to hold the spices on the top shelf. (Right now the jars are just sitting up there loose and you have to get on a stepstool and rummage through them to find what you want.) My goal was simply to remove the sticker, sand off the brand name and a couple of crayon marks, and coat it with fast-drying water polyurethane. Conceivably a project that could be completed in an afternoon.

Well, that giant sticker label on the bottom of the box proved to be a real challenge. I ended up spending about 45 minutes with Goo Gone and a plastic razor scraper removing it. (I recently discovered plastic razor scrapers exist, and I love it!) Then I sat on the porch and sanded for another 45 minutes or so. I ended up using a finer grit than I expected to make the tray as smooth as I wanted. At that point, 5 pm, I knew I needed to clean up my workspace and myself so I could make dinner. However, I spent almost an hour scrolling Facebook before I got in the shower.

Dinner (sausage, veggie pancakes, and sauerkraut) is now almost finished. 

I could say today was successful because I accomplished or made progress on everything I intended to work on. There have been many days where I couldn't say that much. But I also feel down on myself for the 2-3 hours I spent on YouTube or Facebook that could have been more productive. I could have finished that tray today. Or found some other useful things to do. 

I am wondering if I need to establish a tripwire in relation to struggling to start something. Is there a point where I should just say, "that's not happening today. Let me do something else useful instead"? My usual tactic is to try different things to hype myself up to do whatever the difficult thing is, but often it doesn't work or takes a long time to work. I would like to think more about that.