Sometimes I’m obsessive about managing my time.
This is because it doesn’t come naturally to me. I did fine in high school and college where I had outside pressures, ditto at the various jobs I’ve held over the years. But freelancing? Or in general, managing my own life? I was easily distracted and extremely disorganized. When I tried to organize I’d set insanely high goals, not meet them and well, what point in accomplishing half my goals if I couldn’t achieve all of them?
Only it wasn’t just fun distractions or goofing off, As C.S. Lewis writes in The Screwtape Letters, there’s a numbing dreariness that can swallow people: ‘You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room ….the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish.” In the end, I find myself doing neither what I want, nor what I should
Been there, done that. And lately, I think, I’ve been falling back into that. Sitting reading long comment threads on someone’s blog posts (note: there are lots of blogs where I enjoy the comments and participate enthusiastically). Checking in on blogs, or Facebook, or BlueSky, or my inbox. Not that any of these things are inherently bad but after a certain point it does become, as Lewis puts it, a long, dim labyrinth that numbs the mind instead of bringing it joy.
It’s not my computer per se — though putting away when I’m done with work helps minimize it. It’s also that with four pets, increasing numbers of medical treatments for them, multiple increasing distractions (Plushie gets way needy stuck in his cage), I often wind up with my evening or my morning broken down into awkward blocks. Not enough time to sit down and read, or watch TV. Too much time to simply sit and chill. Or the amount of stuff I’ve done by that point leaves me unable to focus and I wind up reading something meaningless online because why not?
I’ve begun pushing back more determinedly against that impulse. I have the advantage of knowing how unpleasant and brain-deadening it is, making me better equipped to resist than I was 15 or 20 years ago.
Another recent quirk in my use of time is that my weekends have become weirdly unstructured. I’ve gotten used to feeling my time is a little too short for everything I want to do: household duties, dog care, date with TYG, shopping and errands, and of course watching movies and reading. Lately it feels like I’m lying around a lot with nothing to do — which can also lead to listlessness and the apathetic state Lewis writes about. One reason I stay off my computer on Saturdays is it minimizes the temptation to waste time in that state.
Lying around is certainly pleasant, but sometimes it’s turning into another form of time wasting. Not the fun type where I lie back and cuddle a pet or daydream, but where I want to read or watch something yet somehow I don’t. It may be that shifts in our schedule are creating more of those awkward blocks of time where I can’t get anything done. Or that, like I said, I’ve become so unused to having a lot of unstructured time my brain fritzes.
Something to work on, definitely. Weekends and days off are too precious to waste the wrong way. Though last weekend, it went pretty well — very relaxed but I got in my exercise, dog care, errands, a little cooking and a lot of reading and movie-watching. So perhaps I’m adapting.
Art by Dali, Richard Powers and Gil Kane, all rights to images remain with current holders.
