Looking at the Week

Tisha B'Av has come and gone, leaving me with my first coffee in about 45 hours.  I have been fasting  since retirement, as it impaired patient care when I had those obligations.  I missed the coffee but did not get withdrawal symptoms.  Ate reasonably sensibly after dark, decent night's sleep I think, though my sleep monitor that assesses the pattern failed.  And did a few chores but did not do anything directly related to Tisha B'Av ritual other than fasting.

Since work is permitted, I did my usual Sunday weekly outline in the morning, though without coffee as a break from listing tasks.  I came up with an unusually long list. Usually I have two columns coded by different color pens, though this week I had to put the green or professionally related tasks between the two columns. I have an ordinary number of blue household objectives but an unusually large number of red family/financial projects, and a growing number of black everything else endeavors filling about 1.5 columns.  Stephen Covey's 7 Habits taught me to think in terms of a week, much like the Torah does.  While Commandment #4 focuses on shabbos, it prefaces this with a requirement of working six days to earn this day off.  

From the morning after Monday review, it's hard to tell if my growing list will ever get whittled down.  Some are particular to this time of the month:  my financial review, donation, a couple of seminars that interest me, preparation for OLLI's fall semester, a few synagogue obligations, maybe a visit to Fenwick Island, my monthly Medscape submission.  Those do not carry forward indefinitely providing I do them.  Others are intermediate components of larger projects.  These get done only to be replaced by the next component.  And increasingly, I find things that have a life of their own, items that have no deadlines or often even end points.  Will go fishing when I get around to it, and then again when I get around to it.  But for now, I think the list has gotten too long to retain its utility, so those One and Done's that shouldn't appear on next week's initiatives need priority for completion.