Time Management Tuesday: Knocked To The Mat

I had a very short, long weekend that involved visiting a museum and then biking and letter boxing. (Pictures!) And dinner with my cousin. And then hitting an outlet where I was able to buy clothes two sizes smaller than I usually wear.

Beautiful trail head

My weekend left me with disorder, though. Travel debris was piled up in the house all day Monday and into this morning. I couldn't work yesterday because I spent most of the day at an appointment and dealing with elder work. Lots of family things coming up over the next month that will involve taking time off  here and there. In fact, I learned today that there will be an out-of-state guest in the area next week. I have a number of work projects I'm juggling, a couple that could be said to have something like deadlines.

Fantastic trail--until we hit the hill.

I do not deal well with mental and physical disruptions and confusion. Last night I spent a couple of hours of prime blogging and social media marketing time dazed and bewildered. It was sort of like being hit too hard in the chest by your sparring partner or having the air knocked out of you because you landed on the floor .

My Options For Getting Up Off The Mat

• Work and let the home chaos go about it's business. In my experience, as home chaos gets worse and worse, so do I.
• Take a day off from work to get the home chaos out of the way. I can do that if there is a compelling family reason, but otherwise I feel bad because I'm not working. And the whole point here is to make me feel better.
• Stick to the unit system, but pay careful attention to the 15-minute breaks between work sessions. By which I mean don't use them to check e-mail or to see if Elizabeth Warren has had anything new to say about Donald Trump. Use them to take care of the clean laundry from last week, put away the suitcase, get rid of the pile of newspapers. For starters.  

I'm sure you can guess which plan I went with. I got one work job done and another where I wanted it to be. I put in some time on something else. I found the file I needed for another project after a protracted search during which I did not panic. The clothes are all put away, as is the suitcase and an array of books and magazines. Bedroom looks pretty good. I made rolls! With a bread machine, you can  do it in the 15 minute time periods I had.

I am not actually on my feet. I am just better than I was last night. I just have to remember that this is my plan for the next few trying weeks.