Time Management requires some acknowledgement of Time

"We cannot say that time 'is' except in virtue of its continual tendency not to be" --Augustine, Confessions


I believe I've mentioned this before, but Time and I have some issues. Well,  I have issues with time and it, being a non-cognizant inevitability, takes no recognition of me. Which is how it should be, I suppose. If Time started taking special exception to me it would probably in fact be more than a little unnerving. Anyway.

I am currently living in a state of transition disguised as stasis. I feel like I'm standing still, that my grand movement has been put on hold. So it is always violently disconcerting when I realize, as I occasionally do, that this is not the case. Time is in fact moving (surprise!). All of those moments and hours and afternoons, all of the in-between times, are all sneaking by me constantly. Faster than ever, it seems. All of a sudden it is time to go to work again. Time to hide again. Time to go to sleep again. And repeat. But wait--there should be so much more wedged in there! Life! Activity and exploration! I work just under 40 hours a week. I'm no longer in school. Where the hell do I get off saying I don't have enough time?

It all gets whiled away, unnoticed. Staring at cracks in windowsills. Taking thirty minutes to iron one shirt. Wandering back into the same room three times, trying to remember what I was doing, if anything. The day is spread out before me, and then before I can realize my brain's denial of time, the rushrush to work hide sleep is upon me.

I've taken up keeping a productivity journal today, both to assure myself that time is indeed passing and to try to prod myself into doing something with it. Divide it up into neat packets, my days able to be quantified and assessed. That day I ran. That day I washed and folded clothes. Today I publish a blog post. It's almost humiliating, the banality of these little lists. But even the tiniest ,most tedious of day-lists is better than the days when I can find absolutely nothing to put down. That is what I'm trying to change, to inch away from. Today hasn't been the greatest of efforts in that direction, but even a small step a little late is progress.

More Pros than Cons, really

Up before noon on a day I don't have to be, so yay... but this required my sleeping through most of yesterday evening. What is wrong with me? Surely people should be able to get by without 14 hours of sleep, even on their day off?

Went to the coffee shop, and the woman behind me enthused wondrously about my hair for a few minutes. "Freaking awesome," she says. And me not having showered in two days and not a brush to my name at the moment. So either an esteem boost on my part or a poor judgement call on hers. Possibly both. A nice moment anyway.

In other, geekier personal news, I really really really want to play Skyrim.

Unfortunately, my desktop computer (past its prime but still theoretically able to run Skyrim) is down for the count-- either the video card is fried (boo) or the motherboard (double boo!). It's been out for a while, and I was going to wait until the winter break to get it fixed, so I didn't have a high-resolution, totally immersive monkey on my back for the last few weeks of the semester. But now everyone is gabbling constantly about it and I am practically vomiting with envy. Want. Okay, /geekout.

Time to go try to be productive in the few hours I actually have before work (only three shifts left--so excited!) And to go shower, no matter what that lady said about my hair.

A place for everything, and everything...goes to hell.

Ugh. I thought trying to be organized was going to make my life better, or easier, or something, but the attempt has been taking over my life like a malevolent creeping spider vine type thing, generally making my weeks into one long borderline anxiety attack. I am even less fun than I normally am. It is like being a hamster running on a wheel in an inhumanely small cage. Except the wheel is sticky. And also has spikes.

It's funny, because when I look at my workload for the day, or week, or whatever, I always think, "Oh, that's not so bad. I can totally do this before (insert applicable deadline here)." Then I actually sit down to do whatever the work is, and everything goes to hell. Whatever part of my brain is in charge of my time-management is apparently run by a psychotic ADD ringmaster, or something equally unproductive.

Also, it doesn't help that we lost a damn hour last night. Always so unfair.

Nor does it help that I'm posting this instead of working on translating Old Irish, but such is life.

Well, while I'm working on getting my priorities straight, I'm going to bake a nice batch of blueberry muffins. Surely that will cheer me up!