(note to Readers – while my new blog is built I am blogging all my topics here – some admittedly non-Pilates as is this entry.)
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I have serious time management issues.
Let me be perfectly clear. By no means am I suggesting that I get nothing done.
But sometimes, (maybe more than sometimes), I get . . . nothing done.
I have mastered what I call “the Art of the Putter”.
I putter at work. I putter around the city. I putter especially well at home.
To the casual observer, I appear busy. And to be fair, I want to appear busy. A part of me is certain that if I appear busy, I might in fact, be busy. But most of the time, I’m just puttering.
Here’s an example.
I have been away from my home with my children for a month. You can imagine the amount of luggage that we arrived with. Add to that a month of acquisition and gifts (birthdays and wrat not) and we are a heavily laden group.
For the past 2 weeks, I have been packing for the return trip home. Nearly a dozen suitcases, duffels, backpacks and roll-aways are strewn about the house. Some are half packed while others are overflowing.
Today is the proverbial 11th hour. Tomorrow morning I will drive home – luggage in tow.
I have spent the entire day walking from one bag to another, adding items here and there. Each adjustment takes time requiring me to navigate from the laundry room downstairs to the luggage upstairs picking up things along the way and depositing them in the appropriate bag. You can hear the Putter, can’t you?
Periodically I rest. Sometimes I log on to check my email. Distractions weave in and out.
However, there has been no significant interruption. No phone calls that had to be tended to or tasks that got in the way. I’ve managed to spend the entire day on a job that should have taken no more than an hour.
Puttering. I simply . . . . putter.
It would have been infinitely smarter to bang out the job lickety split and then nap. Or stroll the beach. Or watch TV. Read a book. Get some work done…..anything.
I know this. And yet, I didn’t do any of those things – opting instead to fritter the time away extending the task into a full-day activity. At work this manifests in a totally different way. But the bottom line is my puttering is hampering my productivity.
How do you keep yourself on task?
Send me your very best tips for time management.