Tag Archives: getting things done

Coming Home to Roost

Earlier in the week I knocked over a box of medallions, and was most displeased. IT was clearly my fault as it was me who knocked them over, but I couldn’t help thinking at the time that if I’d been allowed to organise the storage space things would be a lot better. When you have run the chaos that relates to spare parts on farms, you tend to develop a skill for stacking and storing.

I had to pick up around 20 medallions, and as I did so, I put them in order and made a safer space for them. Today we sold one and I found it easily. However, I then noticed it should have a certificate with it. There wasn’t one. I checked and double-checked, then checked the rest of the box and another box that held similar medallions. Eventually, having exhausted all possibilities, I checked the floor again. It seems that I had been too hasty in my previous clearance, as several more medallions and certificates appeared, having dropped into a storage box on the floor and lodged in gaps between the stored items.

Two Puffins

Again, nobody’s fault but mine, as I should have checked more thoroughly. Definitely a case of “more haste, less speed”, though, as before, I couldn’t help thinking it would be nice if we had things organised so that we didn’t have to work in the middle of a pile of boxes.

When I get a minute I will sort it all out. At the same time I will discover perpetual motion, cure covid, and organise world peace.

And as my pigs fly off into the sunset, I will reflect on the impossibility of ever becoming organised and turn

my mind to things which are more possible, like submitting eight sets of poetry in the next five days and losing weight . . .

I thought of using chickens in photos to match with coming home to roost, but I ended up with puffins.

Puffin at Bempton

The List (1)

I’m not going to be caught out like I was yesterday so I have written a list of jobs to do.

  1. Get up
  2. Take Julia to work
  3. Go back home
  4. Make cup of tea
  5. Make toast
  6. Turn computer on
  7. Check WP
  8. Check emails
  9. Procrastinate

So far, I have to admit, it is going well. I am particularly pleased with the procrastination and have managed to pass an hour playing games, reading false news and generally depressing my IQ.

I am going to-

10. Recycle my tea
11.  Make more tea
12.  Do some of the OU course on War Memorials

Numbers 1 to 11 are, of course, the general clutter that needs clearing everyday, though I often leave it until evening if I am at work. The tasks expand, as they say, to fill the available time. I have now, usefully employed just over an hour of my time to finish the course “War Memorials and Commemoration”, as listed at Number 12. It was a bit of a grind because there are 50 pages from a book to be read from the screen, which isn’t easy, and that’s before you realise that it’s 50 pages about critical analysis and various concepts which are not easy for a man of little brain who really wants to learn about war memorials.

I’m feeling quite good about things now. I would probably have put the course off for another day if it hadn’t been for the list, as I’d stalled on the reading when they started on the theory of criticism. I hadn’t realised it would be there. However, I made myself restart it and had started to enjoy it by the end. Fortunately the last 20% of the material was about war memorials and I know enough about them already for the discussions to present no problems.

13. Write blog post.

I just did that. It’s amazing how a list helps…