Reader beware: This blog post, in particular, truly serves its purpose of acting as a journal for me.
If you've ever put my daughter to bed, and likely most children her age, you know there is a routine. There is an order - hugs and kisses to Daddy, hugs and kisses to Mackenzie, grab any blankets and stuffed animals in the family room, head upstairs, Mari flips the stairway light switch, she walks up the stairs backwards, we turn on the bathroom light, potty time, at the sink she fills up two cups of water - one for swishing, one for spitting, she brushes her teeth, I brush her teeth, she swishes, she drinks, she washes her hands, she applies lotion, I turn off bathroom light, we put on her pull-up and put on pajamas, she grabs a book, we read it together, hugs/kisses/tickles, prayers, I turn on night light, I turn off overhead light, I put on her music, I give her an extra kiss, I turn off the stairway light, and we're done.
Enough, right?
Exhausting, right?
And seriously - don't do any of this out of order. She'll know and then, of course, I'll know (by way of a tantrum).
There is so much comfort in order and routine. And while such type of order is exhausting to me, I thrive on it in order (no pun intended) for me to accomplish my goals. Routine. I hate it but need it. And lately, I've had to break it. If not, I'd not be flexible enough to fit in my tasks to get this diss. done. In other words, I can't type up the section analysis while riding in a car. I CAN read and if I have read all the materials for state 2, then why not read materials for state 3? So that's what I've done. I've gone out of order and in doing so I've gotten a little bit (probably a lot a bit) more completed doing it this way.
A while back I read a great book on getting organized (I'm a facebook fan of hers but can't find her name or the book's name easily at the moment, and don't have enough time to keep looking) Anyways, I learned that for many of us we need to chunk out the time slots of our day and fit in what works best. So, if we have only 15 minutes we can't make pot roast for dinner, but we can make a great soup and salad. If we have 15 minutes we can't clean an entire closet, but we can promise to clean one shoe rack. Same thing: if I have only 15 minutes I won't really be able to get into an analysis section, but I can work on formatting a table, or my table of contents, or read an additional article.
This is hard for me because it breaks out of my mold - okay, it REALLY makes it harder for me to put a check on my checklist, if you want to know the truth. While it seems I can't check off finishing an item as quickly if I splice everything into 15-minute tasks I sort of can because I am finishing MORE things by doing it this way. My recent mini-vacation is a good example. I didn't finish one state. Nope, not one. BUT I continued in one state and got started on two others. By the end of this week, I'll have three states completed which is the same timeline as if I'd done them one at a time. Or maybe not - maybe I'd still be struggling with the same first state...
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