What is it About Thursdays?

I know the "I never could get the hang of Thursdays" thing has become a cliche, but it's so very true. There's just something about Thursdays that seems to trip me up. It may be that my enthusiasm for the week has started to wear off, or that I'm tired after Wednesday night, or that the things that didn't get done earlier in the week because of whatever thing I was focusing on have piled up and must be dealt with, and then that keeps me from dealing with the thing I was focusing on. At any rate, meeting my work time quota was a bit of a struggle yesterday and stretched into the evening, but I powered through and did it. Today I may skip my organizing session to do some other housework and laundry. I'd been using online episodes of BBC radio dramas as background noise to time my work sessions, and that forced me to do them every day, since the stories I was following were about to expire. Now I've made it through the ones I wanted to hear, and that means I have a little more flexibility. I do need to find some other online things to listen to, though, for future work. I think I need to catch up on Welcome to Night Vale, for one thing.

I still have some time management issues, since I'm still not getting everything done that I'd like to. What has helped is making the things that should be a priority a priority. I know that seems blindingly obvious, but somehow it can be really hard to function that way. I have a book on dealing with procrastination, and its suggestion was to schedule the stuff you want to do, leaving open time for the stuff you need to do. That takes the pressure off the things you need to do and limits the time you spend on "time wasters." That worked up to a point, but I think the way it got ingrained into my head was making the time wasters into a priority. This time around, I've identified the things I'm most likely to waste time on and set up rules for dealing with them, mainly that I don't until I've reached my writing goal for the day. That means I actually reach my goal and I have an incentive to do so.

One nice thing about pushing myself to focus on work during the week is that the weekend now feels like a weekend. When you're self-employed and work at home, there's a danger of turning into the Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey: "What's a weekend?" You may end up getting lots of work done on the weekend. Or you may play during the week. The days start to blur. Now I'm looking forward to a couple of days without the to-do list.

I'll still be busy. There's a women's group brunch at church on Saturday morning, then a "meeting"/social gathering with friends Saturday afternoon. And then there are some special events at church Sunday that will extend the day.

Now, off to do dishes and laundry and then settle down for some more revisions so I can maybe relax this evening.