1. Living in a home during renovations is like suddenly moving into a tiny house, because suddenly my living space has been reduced by half.
2. Keep looking toward the end goal, my husband says. In a few weeks it will all be over.
3. I've never been able to see the end of long projects. I strongly suspect this has something to do with my inability to commit to writing a novel.
4. Writing articles has a foreseeable end, even if it's an article that takes me a month to work on. Of course, if I'm doing something like that I'm being paid for it and I have a deadline.
5. Deadlines are not bad things. I never minded deadlines when I wrote steadily for newspapers, because they forced me to do the work.
6. Organization was also important to deadlines. Deadlines kept me organized and in control.
7. School afforded me deadlines, too, and I was able to write longer pieces when I was taking writing courses. I had to turn something in, and it had to be good. I was always an "A" student and I wasn't going to screw that up.
8. However, setting deadlines for myself doesn't work, because I let them pass. No self discipline?
9. Maybe it is the lack of the carrot on the end of the stick, i.e., the paycheck or the "A" that makes self-imposed deadlines easy to bypass.
10. Lots of things have deadlines; dinner, for example. We try to eat before 6 p.m. because we both have indigestion if we eat later. Laundry has less of a deadline, although the dwindling pile of towels and underwear suggests I need to find access to a washer and dryer soon. (Mine is currently unhooked and sitting idle in the garage.)
11. The workers who are making improvements to my home have deadlines, too. Those are imposed by money, as in, the longer they stay on the job the less an hour they are making, because they are being paid by the job and not for their time. Working faster is better for them.
12. What other things have deadlines? Bills. Appointments. Bedtime is a deadline, isn't it? Projects of all sorts. What are the things that you have deadlines for?
13. Some people don't understand deadlines. I call those people politicians. ☺
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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 588th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.
I don't see a foreseeable end to my cluttered spaces. I usually take the path of least resistance. I love your final 13 here.
ReplyDeleteYou want to see my work come to a grinding stop? Gimme a deadline; that'll do it every time.
ReplyDeleteI like deadlines more the most part but like you if it is a deadline for me, I tend to let myself off the hook. I think because I have so much going on a one time. So sorry about your oven glass door but as for laundry ... try your brother’s laundry room out. He should be kind enough to lend it to you for a morning of washing, although he may get you to do his while you are doing yours and hubbys for payback! Ha!ha! :-)
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time I used to get everything done on time. Be everywhere on time. Writing was my thing, too. I don't know what happened. Is it because I know people who gave me deadlines padded in extra time for their own deadlines? But, then no matter how late I or the Husband and I are to an event, we're rarely the last one. Earlier this month we showed up precisely on time for a senior brunch to find that most folks were almost through their breakfast.
ReplyDeleteEvery now and then, when I'm very serious about getting something done, I set a deadline on myself. But it has to be on my absolutely-must-do list. If it's not, oh well.