One of the problems with this, I have come to realize, is that there is ever-increasing pressure to finish tasks as quickly as possible to move on to the next task. Of course, this is how it should always be, but often this increased pressure leads to a task being only done enough to move on, but it's not completely done the way I'd like it to be. Sometimes, that leads to manual intervention on my part later because I don't have time to add as many features or options. Most times, that leads to another, smaller task to "finish" that task, so while I cross the big item off the list, I don't often reduce the actual number of tasks. Whenever someone gives me a new task, especially if it is "top priority" and I have to put everything else off to work on that, I often think, "Yeah, I'll never get anything done."
I have often thought that just working a little extra each day will help get these tasks done, but I want to TRY to maintain a little balance.
Balance. Haha. That's pretty funny.
So, on top of my task list at work, I have been given the awesome opportunity to do some consulting work for another company, which has been a HUGE financial blessing for my family. Our debt is shrinking rather than growing (FINALLY!), and we're determined to get out of debt. Now, they've got plenty for me to do (although admittedly, not nearly as many items on my task list there--mostly just one big job) and it provides ample opportunity for me to earn extra money, so I try to put extra time in there too. So my weekday schedule lately has been like this:
- Get up
- Get ready for work
- Get kids started getting ready for school
- Go to work
- Go straight from there to my consulting gig
- Come home in time to do nighttime routines with the family and put the kids to bed
- Often, I go back to my consulting work after the kids are in bed
- Come home
- Go to bed
- Start it all over again when I wake up a few hours later
So much for balance.
Now of course, I've got a similar task list issue at home too. I've got all sorts of things that I'd like to get working on, but largely because I work a lot, and as a family we have a lot going on as well (lots of things scheduled), I don't get nearly enough time to work on that stuff as I'd like. And I'll be honest. When I do get time, I don't always really want to spend it on that stuff. For example, I took some time to go through our sprinkler system, taking careful note of which sprinklers didn't work very well (they didn't work very well all through last summer. Rhoda was watering some parts of our lawn by hand all summer), and I bought the sprinklers that I needed to replace. I think that was a month ago. About half of the new sprinklers are sitting in the bag they were in when I bought them. The ones that are in the ground didn't get put in until at least two weeks after I bought them. Thank goodness it's been a pretty rainy season. Anyway, we also had a bunch of trees cut down, and to save money, we didn't have them remove or grind down the stumps. I want to get them out because we'd like to plant a couple of different kinds of trees as well as fix our grass in the back yard. Yeah, so anyway, the home task list is pretty long too, and it's not really getting any shorter.
Now, that being said, I think I'm doing an ok job at juggling all this stuff, but that's just my personal opinion. Admittedly, the list of home stuff suffers. But at the same time, a task list is just a task list, right? On top of all of that, I try to go out of my way to spend time and do stuff with my family when I can because that is really my top priority--making sure my family is safe and happy and that we have good, happy memories together. If I don't make a point to specifically schedule time to do that--actually spend time with my family, not just complete task lists at work and home--among everything else going on, then everything else is pointless. "No other success can compensate for failure in the home." I really believe that.
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