Might Go Out Later

Two days a month my personal calendar offers me a respite.  On the dates divisible by 3, I grant myself a day for my lower extremities to recover from the previous two day's treadmill sessions.  On the dates divisible by 4 I have a self-imposed but increasingly necessary avoidance of FB and Twitter.  Exercise takes about a half hour. Social media drains more than that, though the amount can be hard to assess, as some is a time sink and some activity purposeful connection or expression of ideas.  But on the 12th and 24th of each month, I acquire a small amount of transient time affluence. It never comes out as separate time allocated to other neglected activities, though.  Maybe it should.  While the treadmill takes a defined portion of time, the social media sink is more insidious.  There is a total accumulation of poorly allocated activity but no single interval which if used differently would enable me to read an extra chapter of a book, watch a documentary that I might otherwise skip, or commit my thoughts to a keyboard.  I do all these things on the other days of the month despite the distraction of FB.  What I really have is less a unified portion of time as much as the lure of transient engagement to something of greater value that I should be doing instead.

My daily task lists always far exceeds what I can realistically do, or even should do if I want to do the items I select well.  But two days a month I have both the half hour's exercise time diverted to something else and the distraction of social media eliminated.  I think I'll use the occasion to go out later today.