Thoughts and Successes for Today

Today feels semi-successful as far as time usage and accomplishments go.

I had my weekly Bible study this morning with two ladies. I always feel a little drained afterwards, partly from socializing, partly from the intellectual discussion. Today, I also got emotional at one point. Usually feeling drained means I veg out for a while, too long, really. Today, as the study was finishing up, I anticipated that I would feel drained and thought about what items on my to-do list could be done with low energy. I pinpointed two, and so I was mentally preparing to move into those tasks as the ladies were leaving.

I still took a little break to have a snack and check on my farming game (the kind where crops, etc. take a certain amount of time before you can harvest them. It encourages frequent but brief check-ins.) But then I got myself moving on one of the two tasks, which was entering receipts into our finance software. Our monthly financial review is this weekend, so that had to happen. After that, I can't say that I was full of energy or raring to go on my other tasks, but I made gradual progress. I did decide to move two tasks to another day that makes more sense. 

One task, clearing documents off my old laptop, was more complicated than I anticipated. I had left a bunch of documents in the Downloads folder so they were unorganized, and many had cryptic file names like a string of numbers or "archive."

I found myself using Dana K. White's decluttering method. First, look for trash. Based on file names, I was able to delete about half the documents. Next, easy stuff. Some of the file names made it obvious where in the organized shared drive I needed to move the files. Third, of the remaining stuff, take one item at a time, identify it, and ask "where would I look for this first?" This involved opening each file with a cryptic name and then either deleting it or renaming it to be less cryptic. The final step is "take it there now", i.e. put these files into the organized shared drive, but I haven't quite gotten there yet. Maybe I will feel up for it after writing this. There only 26 files remaining where originally there were over 100. 

Speaking of Mrs. White, I was listening to one of her old podcast episodes this morning as I puttered around. (Often I just like to hear a voice talking when I'm home alone.) In it, she talked about applying the "one in, one out" rule to time and weekly activities. This is a connection I recently made for myself, but it was nice to hear her talk about it, too. (If you're not familiar, "one in one out" means that if you add something to your household, you should remove an equivalent item to prevent cluttering up your place. So, for example, you buy a new spatula, you throw out an old, beat-up spatula.) 

When I have been filling a lot of my time with video-watching, game-playing, and novel-reading, it's easy to say, "oh, yes, I have plenty of free time. I can add that new activity in." But I have to acknowledge that the new activity is going to need some of the time that I've been using on leisure activities. That I need to make a real decision to give up some of that leisure time to make room for this new activity. 

A few weeks ago, when I was realizing that I'd like to get more focused on conquering the to-do list, I decided to take a break from some of my phone games. I have an old phone that I exclusively use for some puzzle games so that my current phone doesn't have that distraction on it. I turned off my old phone and put it away for an indefinite period so that I don't have the pull of those games on my time and I have more energy for accomplishing useful things. I do miss it sometimes, but I still have access to a few games on other devices that are less time-intensive, so I don't feel totally deprived. 

This post seems rambly, but I don't feel like changing it. So here's the TL;DR:

1. Success--I anticipated a period of low energy and made and executed a plan for how to be productive in spite of it.

2. Point of interest--Dana K. White's decluttering method works on computer files.

3. Learning--time is limited, a month/week/day is a container, there is only so much you can fit into it and still function, so make a point to take something out when you add something in.