Monday, September 21, 2009

Oh, yes, I remember Office Hours

Filling in at my old job and am enjoying my "office hours" once again. I'm working, I've even already finished the main task that I was here to execute. But I'm also blogging, have balanced my check book and have emailed a few important emails that needed to go out. Office hours do quickly and easily turn into "Tiny Task Time."

In Christine Kane's blog and newsletter, she cautions about not letting email become an all day affair - that is, if it's open on your computer, it will be a distraction from other work and accomplishment. How many times do I swap tabs when I see that my email inbox goes from zero to one? Pretty often. And it's probably revealing that my inbox is in a near-constant state of zero. It's not that I don't get a lot of emails, but that I obsessively read them as they come in.

I'm going to throw email into a category of important, but not urgent tasks called "Tiny Tasks," which include organizing, scheduling, prioritizing and list making. These are relatively important and I will even argue that the are vital to me getting anything done, but I think that when I'm doing Tiny Tasks all day long, I'm not really accomplishing my larger goals.

I'm not sure where blogging fits - at work, on my work blog, that is, it's less of a distraction and more of a job, because I do need to do a little research and take the time to write something reasonably well thought out, but my personal blog...? Well, it's more for my personal entertainment, so it's probably not a task at all. That is, it's not on my To-Do list for the day, but more like taking a good friend's phone call.

In any case, I think I need to schedule Tiny Task Time and in that time, figure out what I should be doing during the rest of the day to accomplish my larger goals and to focus on items that are important but not urgent.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Oh What a Busy Weekend!

Friday
  • Indian food with friends - yum! (Using a restaurant.com coupon - thank you!)
  • Watching a movie @ their house. Earth - AMAZING!
Saturday
  • Breakfast and coffee @ home (Scrambled eggs with leeks, poblano chile and grape tomatoes with Dave's Killer Bread toast - with great ingredients, you can't go wrong!)
  • House cleaning - okay this one isn't happening in the way we'd planned, but we've already set the tomatoes to drying and put all the sheets in the wash machine, so we're at least started
  • Veg Fest - fun!
  • Visit TRee and see the new baby who is cute as a button!
  • Mini golfing birthday party

Sunday

  • Maybe breakfast with friends from DC at the farmers market
  • Kayaking - time and location TBD, but we are DEFINITELY GOING!
  • See the baby if that didn't fit into Saturday's schedule
  • Doggie Palooza?
  • Mt Angel Oktoberfest?

Oh, there are so many options. I imagine that we'll come home after kayaking and finish the house cleaning, but there's always fall when the weather is bad, right? (The correct answer is: wrong, because in the fall and winter, there are all kinds of exciting and interesting indoor events, too, but I'm going to let it slide this time. I'm sure we'll be able to get the guest bedroom and bathroom picked up for our visitor next weekend and he doesn't care anyways.)