The other day I made a realization. When one has a lot of ideas and suddenly has
the actual time to pursue said ideas, it’s hard to figure out what to focus
upon. It’s not a new realization, really
– I always seemed to struggle when I was taking only twelve hours in college,
and my best semesters of all happened when I was working twenty or more hours
and taking eighteen hours. I was busy as
hell, but I got everything done and made good grades to boot.
At the moment I have the opposite – I am completely in
charge of my day, which is a heavenly luxury.
But - I’m having a hard time getting things done. I don’t
know which “project” to focus upon, and I end up either completely neglecting
one thing for others, or just feel overwhelmed and end up spending way, way too
much time lost in the cyberworld. (It
really is addicting- there’s so much to see, to research, to be inspired by…sometimes
I feel like I’m Harry Potter and the internet is the Penseive thingy – I get
too close and suddenly I’m sucked in, trapped until it decides to spit me out!)
One might say
that I have too many projects. Well, too
bad for that – I am determined to work at all these things to their ends, or
until and unless they no longer make sense to pursue. I can
let go of things if they aren’t right, but sometimes one has to keep pushing to
make things happen. I don’t feel like I’ve ever really given some
of these things that kind of effort, time and attention yet. So they are all still on the docket. Period.
It’s ironic, though, that we often wish we had more time
to do this or that, but when we have the time, it still goes just as swiftly as
it did when we didn’t have it! I now see
why my older sister is so hyper-organized - she seems to have schedules for her
schedules! I understand - she has so much on her
plate that she simply won’t get things done if she doesn’t have time budgeted
for it. To me, that has always seemed too rigid - I’ve
always been more of a “take things as they come,” sort of girl. After
all, I don’t want to miss out on any serendipitous events! (I’m
sure my sister will tell you that it leads to my being somewhat flighty, and I
won’t deny it. But I do have the good
grace to feel guilty about it, at least…) And I’ve managed to get things done and
be successful without it – mostly.
Too, when I was the
mother of a young child, I ran across mothers who would never alter their child’s
routines – everything revolved around the child’s schedule. That was NOT me. If there was something to do and it was
naptime or lunch time, we skipped naptime, ate on the run and went and had
fun! Yet I will admit that most of the time, we did have naptime,
and a bedtime routine, and yes - a set schedule.
So I guess I need to do both – set a schedule and maybe
some deadlines and follow them the majority of the time, but still be flexible
enough to stay with something if it’s inspired, or needs attention right now. After all, creativity and inspiration are not
subject to schedules – they appear when they appear, and I’m still me enough to
have to go with them when they do their dance on my head.
Such a lovely dilemma to have, anyway. I’m
not complaining – just, as usual, working things out as I write. I wonder if most people feel torn, as I do, between
being a disciplined grown up and a free-spirited will o’the wisp. For me, it’s been sort of a lifelong battle between
my two, seemingly equal, natures. It’s
difficult to embrace both sides and make it work. The practical side has won out mostly and I frankly
resent it sometimes! But now that the
other me is free, I fear it needs to be reined in a little because it’s a little scary! And maybe not so productive, and life is short! So once again, I'm trying to balance the two with an uneven scale. I’ll
try to be honest about how things are going.
For example, I did plan on blogging on Mondays, and here it is Wednesday…oops
- already off schedule! J
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