Places I Need to Be

Having been retired not quite a year, there emerges a tension between a totally open block of time and one that is accounted for.  Appointed times and flexible times seem to come in clusters, this week and last filled with some fixed obligation most days.  This week:

1. Sunday:  Funeral
2. Monday: Shiva visit, Meet with financial planner
3. Tuesday: Platelet Donation
4. Wednesday: Carpenter coming to repair backyard deck
5. Thursday: Trip to NYC to visit friend
6. Friday: No appointments
7. Saturday: Doing Shacharit at shul

For the most part, this seems a reasonable balance between structure and blocks of potentially productive time that get too easily depleted.

I have certain appointments with myself:  exercise on specified days, Sermo on specified days, Facebook on specified days, make dinner for shabbos each week, take my waist and weight measurements each Monday, review the week's parsha online with commentary from two specified sages.  For the most part I fulfill these fairly well.  

What I don't seem to do well is what the most successful among us seem to do without prompting just because they have a compulsion to devote themselves, be it writing, fishing, art, or even work.  Their day defaults to their prime activity.  Mine has no default so I have to compensate with a schedule, a to-do list, and often a timer.