Imperfect timing

Time is of the essence. Time marches on. There simply is not enough time. What time is it? If I've told you once, I've told you time and time again, if I only had enough time. Time to go! Excuse me, do you have the time? I'm sorry, you have run out of time.

Twenty-four hours in one day seems like a workable and reasonable allotment of time to accomplish the things that need to get done in the business of life on a daily basis. Yet more often than not, those 1,440 minutes just never seem to stretch far enough to get it all done. So we expand our thought process and think, Hey, I have 86,400 seconds to get this done, that's plenty of time! But time has no mercy for the procrastinator and keeps on ticking without regard to our harried and frenetic protests. So, we readjust our priorities, pare away the unnecessary, focus on the most important, and give ourselves additional time. When we allow ourselves extra time, tomorrow becomes the today we thought about yesterday and suddenly we realize that we now have 259,200 seconds to accomplish that vitally important task at the top of our 'to do' list. Now we have 4,320 minutes to 'git 'er done' and our twenty-four hour time slot blossoms into seventy-two hours! Finally, we can breathe and wiggle the kinks out of our tense shoulders. It's all going to work out. There is plenty of time!

I am a notorious procrastinator. I am a poor manager of time. I flit from one thing to another with nary a backward glance, only to remember later that I need to finish something I started long before I got distracted. This has brought me to the conclusion that blogging is an exercise in discipline and time management. Dangerous territory for a woman who wanders through life one adventure at a time.

Here is a perfect example: One morning recently, I found a fairy-ring of toadstools around a squat palm while out riding around in our golf cart. Instead of passing glance at this delightful surprise of nature, I had to stop, pull out my camera, and take multiple pictures from various angles of this unexpected fairy resort. My mind began to conjure up all kinds of stories that could explain why fairies would need a Floridian resort. After about twenty minutes spent photographing and reveling in the spontaneity of my find, I realized that once again my imagination had hijacked my schedule and I was hopelessly behind on my 'to do' list for the day, again. My poor husband would have to eat a cold bologna sandwich for supper instead of the delicious crockpot chicken that I had planned to make before deciding that the day was just perfect for a ride through our neighborhood in our golf cart. To my dismay, the crockpot was still sitting on the shelf in the pantry and the chicken was in the freezer, while I was fantasizing about what the fairies were doing at their 5-star resort!

I am never at a loss for words, but sometimes I am quiet. I love to share my thoughts, writing comes easily to me, but time is a fleeting and often an elusive phenomenon that stretches the patience of those around me. Which brings me to the point of this entry. Blogging is my new exercise in discipline. Perhaps, in time, blogging will strengthen my time management skills. Perhaps it will befuddle my readers, it's hard to say, really. But through it all I think you will gain an understanding of my absolutely distracted personality. After all, isn't that what blogging is all about? Peeking into the mind of the writer, one word at a time? Wander with me. I'm on an interesting journey through time!