Tackling the To-Do List
I plan to continue the Disney thread in a bit (in fact, it's item #1 on my to-do list), but before I do I wanted to elaborate on a tweet I just made:
Why does unemployment = being busier than ever? Maybe because I'm trying to tackle my to-do list instead of treating it as a lost cause.
WWLoriHC Thu 25 Jun 10:41 via TweetDeck
My to-do list is lengthy. It includes things that I often got to while I was working, such as uploading photos to Flickr (*taking* photos isn't on the list because TRY AND STOP ME) and, less often, blogging, as well as things that Al and I would occasionally schedule in an attempt to knock them off, such as cleaning out a closet, doing household chores, or posting an item on freecycle or craigslist.
It's the items I never really had any hope of getting to, however, that are overwhelming me now—because on becoming unemployed, I had the illusion that YES! Now I'll finally be able to [insert long-languishing to-do item here]. (Suddenly the Beaner's Mad Libs Jr. books, with their lists of suggested nouns, verbs, and adjectives, come to mind.)
Of course, as anyone who's ever looked for a job before knows, it can be, if not a full-time gig in itself, at least a part-time one. That leaves between 10 and 20 hours a week for Flickr, blogging, reading blogs/news/Twitter, and the rest of the to-do list. I'm trying not to find the list so daunting as to write it off as a lost cause again, and I'm also trying not to be overambitious. One item at a time.
At the risk of not just seeming, but actually being, dorky, I'm going to publish my to-do list in the sidebar. I'm hoping it will encourage me to cross things off. (I won't include the things I usually get to daily or weekly, but rather the things I've been meaning to get to for weeks or months.)
Once I've done that, I'll get to the Disney post... and then one of the items on the list.