Overscheduled Week

Retirement usually offers ample, maybe excessive, time flexibility.  Appointments are few.  During the academic year OLLI classes require me to be at a certain place at a certain time.  Shabbos comes every Friday night.  Saturdays are more flexible depending on what synagogue obligations I've undertaken.  Doctors' appointments and prepartory lab testing appear on my schedule more than they once did, though not in a burdensome way.  And I have special events:  birthdays, anniversary, Seder, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day.  But mostly not much needs entry in a scheduling grid.  I can travel when I want, mostly.  Shop at times I choose.  Find time at My Space and in my kitchen.  I've committed to doing things, but mostly control when to do them, sometimes at the expense of accountability.

So with some trepidation, I look to a rare upcoming week where other people impose my activities.  My children and grandchildren who live a distance away will each be coming my way a few days apart.  Very high priority.  I will have an overnight trip for one, have to prepare a luncheon for the other.  At mid-week, other events appear.  An organization to which I have done important things sponsors a semi-annual reception.  It is my chance to meet the remarkable students that my committee has awarded scholarships.  As that early evening gathering concludes, my synagogue holds its annual meeting.  I contribute or reap very little from that event but as a Board Member and frequent contributor of skill to their ongoing worship program, I probably ought to go, at least via Zoom.  While I do useful things for them, I create nothing, unlike the scholarship committee where my analytical input has transformed how the committee decides which applicants to award.  

The next day I have a doctor's appointment with my most irritating practice.  They are tracking a few things, not always in the most expedient way.  Appointments for office and procedures are at a premium, so I take what I can.  For this encounter, an online visit, I know what I want to accomplish.

Then travel the next day, leaving me about 24 hours with daughter and granddaughter.  They will have traveled from SF to NY a few days before, so should be rested.  I do not desire much tourism.  From there, I drive home in time for a pre-shabbos barbecue at the synagogue.  I have mixed feelings about these events, as the last cookout I found problematic.  Shabbos services the next day, with my wife a key participant.  Then Fathers' Day where I make my own special dinner.

These events of specified times add up.  They come with the opportunity cost of what I could be doing instead, but seeing kids and scholarship recipients offers high value.  A doctor's visit by Zoom takes less than a half hour.  The synagogue activities disrupt a bit more, though not having to make Friday night dinner at home offsets what I would usually find myself doing.  Even travel slows down from the norm.  When I go to NYC once or twice a year, I center it around attractions of a tourist destination.  Focusing on people this time reduces some of the decision stress, though I still do not know where I will park my car near my destination in Brooklyn.

The cluster of events forces me to immerse myself in other people.  Less time at my laptop, more holding grandchildren and shaking hands.  Not that much more in my car.  Less with myself, less checking off what tasks I've completed each day.  Probably a beneficial reset for the more usual weeks that follow. 

No Appointments

Almost no appointments today. I have times assigned to myself.  Wake time done.  Dental hygiene done, Treadmill shortly.  None take very long.  The rest of my day remains unscheduled.  Nearly all should do's. Few must do's with none to please somebody else.  Future projects await.  Those need progress, some in small steps today, others in larger accomplishment. Deadlines not imminent.

Today's Daily Task List runs two columns, loosely prioritized.  Some purposeful as components of Semi-Annual Projects, others more recreational.  Segments for work.  Segments for leisure.  Optimism as first cup of coffee nears completion.  Next, treadmill.  Then no more appointments, not even with myself.

Assigning Times

Yesterday began with a fixed appointment.  Assessing highway likelihoods, I needed to check into the Blood Bank for a periodic platelet donation at 8:30AM, which created much of what I would do the rest of the day.  Morning routine of dental, eye drops, Monday scale and waist tape measurements, and antihypertensives along with coffee, retrieving the newspaper from the driveway, and a few dishes.  It was a treadmill day off.  The Blood Bank requires its donors to eat within three hours of their appointment, so that needed to be done quickly.  Travel meant that I had to get dressed earlier than usual.  Despite arising at my usual time, to do all this, the emails and crosswords had time limits that coincided with coffee consumption.  I made it.  Donated to a worthy recipient, while I stayed tethered to a recliner for two hours, watching Netflix while I probably would have been doing other things at home.  In retrospect, being ready to leave the house earlier was a good thing.  

On treadmill days, though, I much prefer to stay in my night clothes while exercising.  But on days off, I should hasten the day by getting dressed right after the first cup of coffee, and on treadmill days, get dressed right after the session concludes.   The treadmill itself has an approximate time, not exactly to look forward to as much as assure that it gets done, which it nearly always does.  Its assigned time delays my caloric intake, as I do not like serious physical effort on a full stomach, so therefore it also marks how the rest of the day will proceed.

OLLI courses, now four days weekly, has helped frame my daylight hours.  I have to be there at set times, but I like leaving home earlier to be in their lounge for a while, either drinking coffee, chatting with an old friend at times, or exploring where my smart phone can take me.  It's not exactly productive, rarely helping me pursue anything on my Daily Task List, but a form of welcome relaxation amid other people.  So most weekdays can divide to before OLLI today and after OLLI today.

Supper, nearly always made by me, also has taken a reasonably set time of 6:30PM most evenings.  My time in the kitchen for preparation is usually minimal.  Stuff comes out of the freezer, either the day before or at the time.  A potato can go in the oven for as long as it takes.  The evening's protein rarely takes a lot of attentive time.  The vegetable goes in the microwave or boiling water.  And then we eat.

And so my daylight hours are framed by must do's that essentially always get done.  These, however, are a small fraction of my Daily Task List, most of which has no assigned time.  Thus broad swaths of writing, reading, housekeeping, and recreation need to find places inbetween activities with time allotments, or get their own time allotments.  I've not been doing very well at this, which reflects something of a shortfall between what I intended as my Semi-Annual projects and what remains to be done with two months remaining in the current cycle.  But I still have two more months to make the correction.