Tuesday, June 05, 2007

It's a Wonder What a Good List Can Do

So, I've been feeling a bit at loose ends with work stuff, and all of that came to a head yesterday with my minor meltdown PMS feeling of freakishness and doom. You know, the problem is that I can really handle things much more efficiently and with much less drama when I'm really busy - and part of that is because I then become very committed to scheduling myself. Part of my problem over the past couple of weeks is that I've been very unscheduled, and - much like little children who don't have regular nap and bedtimes - I get fussy when I don't have a routine. I also start feeling all angsty and inadequate and incompetent and stuff.

(Note: this was something I felt periodically during graduate school and felt most of all during the dissertation-writing phase of things when I had a fellowship and wasn't teaching; I had not yet learned that I had to be very regimented in order to actually be happily without a schedule that was imposed upon me.)

But so anyway, I've not been scheduling myself adequately since the semester ended. At first that was good because I needed some down time. But the end result is that I've been Ms. Cranky Pants much more than I'd like over the past week or so.

But so anyway, yesterday I committed to making a list of things to do, and can I just say that this list only ultimately took me 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete? Sure, it was a list of piddly odds and ends, but I had built them up in my head to be this colossal mountain of odds and ends that I could never complete. So I'm feeling much less cranky and fussy and well, lte's just say it, crazy today than I've been feeling. This is a good thing. And I'm beginning to get psyched about my upcoming conference, and I'm also psyched to hang with BFF this afternoon/evening. Speaking of which, I'm famished. I believe I shall call BFF and see what she thinks about hanging out right now.

1 comment:

krisluvswool said...

Isn't it amazing how a list of nothing much can become a monstrous task. What really amazes me, however, is that the great feeling of getting these things done (and the realization that it wasn't that bad) never inspires me to start getting it done before I make it into a monstrous task.