the way to get things done

ahhh tea time. This is the good stuff.

I just spoke to a friend of mine who is working on her PhD Dissertation. She is one of the busiest people I know. She teaches twice a week at Portland State and three times a week at Louis and Clark. She also spends Saturdays teaching Chinese at the Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association's language school. So it seemed odd that she would confess to being lazy. She said she hadn't done anything on her paper recently and was feeling really stressed out.

So my friend is doing all this work and it is important, but she is feeling out of sorts because she isn't able to focus on the one thing she knows she has to do. This is one of those cases where advice is easy to dispense. It is even obvious, but I probably wouldn't listen to it any more than she would. Seeing her example though, was illustrative.

While she was talking, a faint lightbulb went on in my head. I wondered if many very busy people are really closet procrastinators. Sure, we seem to get a lot done, but we really have a very oblique angle of attack on our main goals. Did I just include myself in that group of busy people?

Where I work we have these on-line training activities to do. I deplore them. It always seems as if there are better things to work on. Before I gave up on them, they were a sort of perverse form of motivation. They fed on my desire to find something else to do and I calculated that I was ultimately more productive in the area of meaningful work. A while back, I simply stopped doing them. So far, no manager has said a word to me. I am aware that there is a chance I may have to go back and do that training. However, it is looking pretty good so far. I have items on my list from 2003. I even wondered if they are only there to goose people like me into doing their normal duties more efficiently.

I do tend to let short term committments get in the way of broader goals. I probably need to regroup now.