Travel Preferences

OLLI Spring Semester concluded. Shavuot observed.  A time gap follows until classes resume after Labor Day.  That leaves three months, largely unscheduled, months of opportunity for exploration.  Some fixed points, or semi-fixed points, appear, but not many.  A rendevous with daughter and granddaughter on their travels.  A scheduled doctor's appointment.  Father's Day.  Our anniversary. Tisha B'Av in late July this secular calendar year.  No pressing household chores.  Outdoor gardens need little maintenance.  No pets to arrange care. Mostly possibilities.  Three months of possibilities merged with priorities.

While the current price of fuel has spiked, getting away from home periodically remains a priority.  My wife and I clashed on how this should play out.  Programmed with no hassle suits her.  Minor adventure with new experiences falls high on my radar.  When I set my current semi-annual projects six months ago, I included air travel as an initiative.  Wife sorta OK with that until we arrive at a destination.  Then a thumbs down to car rental and multihour drive.  We discussed cruising.  Conceptually fine.  Europe no.  Canada sold out for the peak of our summer.  Road trip of any type requiring overnight motels along the route has not gone well the last few times.

We diverge on political overtones.  Scenery and marvels of nature and much of history has been populated by people who vote differently than we do.  I just want to have new experiences.  She wants to restrict who benefits from our money.  

So we worked out a pact.  For the peak summer, we would travel by car for a few days.  The air travel would bring us to our grandchild who lives in a place that votes more like we do, but with some nature and resorts.  Not irreconcilable differences.

Big trip the following calendar year, special personal milestone, contingent on health.  A reasonable accommodation to each other.

Visiting a New Place

Each semi-annual goal list contains an element of new experience.  It may be significant travel, day trips to places I've not been before, eating something I've not had before, joining a committee.  Experiences come in a lot of different forms.  Often it is visiting a new place, whether a city, tourist site, park within my own state, or even a new restaurant.

This cycle I had the initiative not as specifically new but as three day trips.  I had completed one, taking advantage of my SEPTA Senior Card to walk the length of Elfreth's Alley, Philadelphia's oldest currently occupied residential street.  Being on vacation from my state university's senior division, I seemed overdue for another visit to a new place.   A dear friend never made many social connections.  As his years advance, he has become more dependent on other people, more isolated at a senior living facility.  After a few desperate emails, my wife and I paid him a visit.  Driving took about two hours, with a stop for coffee and some redirection by Waze when I misunderstood where to turn.  I'd been to Baltimore many times for a variety of reasons, though not to where he current resides.

To our relief, the tales of woe sent electronically seem far beyond what we saw.  He lives in a spacious place, tastefully furnished, with kind staff everywhere.  The drive took its toll on me, so I left most of the conversation to my wife while I rested on a sofa.  He had an afternoon medical appointment, which gave everyone a reason to conclude the visit.

Many of my private times in Baltimore take place on Saturday mornings.  I am fond of one of their Orthodox synagogues, once headed by an iconic senior rabbi who has since retired.  I make a day of it, leaving early enough to get coffee at a WaWa, arrive before Torah reading and sometimes go to a tourist attraction after services, but sometimes just head home after kiddush.  While the shul sits in Jewish Baltimore, I only drive past a lot of McMansions where few of those in attendance can afford to live.  There is another part of Jewish Baltimore, perhaps its most robust section, just over the hill from where I turn off.  It being Saturday, everything Jewish is closed, including the 7 Mile Kosher supermarket, where I have always wanted to shop, if only one time.

This seemed like the ideal time to go.  Passover approaches.  My regional grocer has a weakening attachment to our local Vaad, though I could still get a respectable Passover food supply.  It's those irritants, the shankbone once given away for free, then sold, now absent.  Dairy not yet out.  And a very limited supply of meat.  Passover has the communal eating of meat at its core.  For a few guests, I can get chickens, both whole birds and parts to make soup.  For a crowd, there were no big slabs of meat to buy, other than frozen turkeys that people can defrost.  

Waze directed and misdirected me to parts of Jewish Baltimore I'd not driven past previously.  Modest homes with small yards.  And many more apartment complexes than I would have expected in proximity to the miniestates where lawyers and Hopkins neurosurgeons live. Two synagogues, one large reddish masonry building with signage announcing it as a Sephardic synagogue.  Another a smaller more conventional Orthodox place.  People on the sidewalks included a Hasidic teen girl with little skin exposed and a few men in black.  But the neighborhood had other representation.  Some African Americans.  A sprawling school dominated a block on our route, a few blocks from our kosher megamart.  Not a yeshiva but the Frederick Douglas High School.

The GPS corrected my directional misunderstandings.  We arrived at the Market.  It had a sprawling parking lot, though as Pesach approaches, it also has a lot of patrons, many visibly orthodox with beards, kippot, and tzitzit emerging over their belts.  Carts seemed filled to the top.  More than any empty nester household could eat.  These purchases will fill the back of an SUV and take a while to bring inside.  Perhaps some shopped as agents of their synagogues or organizations for communal seders or a week's worth of meals for a day school. 

I had been to large kosher markets before.  My childhood town has emerged as a Hassidic hub.  On my last visit, I toured Rockland Kosher, though without the detail and intent that I approached most aisles of 7 Mile Market.  Shankbone?  A whole case, help yourself, $2 each.  Priority for my cart.  Big hunks of beef, plain and corned.  Enough for a Bar Mitzvah caterer.  Margarine, no.  The industry must have withdrawn from Passover pareve margarine.  And no dairy.  Some prices far exceeded what I once paid.  Large briskets could run over $100.  A raw beef tongue, not seen in years, now sells for $40 a pound.  I did not run across lamb or duckling, but did not seek them out.  Marshmallows.  Had to put a bag in my cart.  My wife took a liking to thinly sliced sandwich steaks, to be reduced to smaller portions when we get home.  An I've not seen an authentic kosher salami in years.  Passover approved.  Into cart.

Satisfied, we headed to the checkout.  Interestingly the employees were sometimes representative of the local Orthodox clientele, but they had Black and Latino staff, including our most pleasant cashier.  No self-checkout lanes.  No express lanes either.  At each register, they keep a cardboard tzedakah box.  It helps local families in some way.  One of the Passover traditions is to add to a fund that enables Jews of low income to purchase supplies for their holiday.  I think these black corrugated boxes with slots on the top had a different destination.  I tapped my card.  As I returned the Visa to its wallet slot, I took out a dollar, folded it and stuffed it into the slot.  

As awesome as the place appeared, and as tempting a return visit without the Passover limitation seems, it still requires a 70 mile drive each way, and one bridge toll.  I likely will return to that favorite synagogue, though the Market closes on shabbos.  Similar, though less comprehensive options exist a shorter drive from my home.  At one time I drove out of necessity about 35 miles each way to a kosher butcher about every 6-8 weeks.  My school age son joined me.  Father/Son bonding or bondage made the errands special.  As an empty nester, these quests for the more exotic cuts of meat, liver, tongue, duckling, veal seem harder to justify.  But my afternoon at 7 Mile Market, both products and ambience, made me eager to inconvenience myself a little, if only to explore closer to home.

Staying on Schedule

For most of my 70-something years, I've pursued what interested me.  In school, I had a class schedule and assignments with deadlines.  I attended, turned in my term papers, and took exams.  Work became less scheduled.  I had office patients most days and people who needed hospital attention.  Consultations and admissions came randomly.  Phone calls mostly got squeezed in.  Pharmaceutical and insurance representatives stopped by mostly on their schedules.  I accomplished what needed doing but enjoyed the autonomy of what I would do when.  Retirement carried over that imprint.  No pressure to time most things.  When I enrolled in OLLI, classes met at specified times, and I had to allot transit time there and back.  Synagogue services commenced at announced times but few people arrived at the beginning.  Like most in attendance, I calculated how much time I wanted to be present, knowing that concluding prayers and kiddush occurred at reasonably predictable hours, then adjust my arrival to suit.

Our modern age exacts a price for that flexibility.  Once retired, there are no times that need an alarm clock, let alone acquiescing when tired to meet somebody else's leverage over me.  Social media, emails, cell phones can absorb whatever blocks of time their addictive nature imposes.  No set meal times.  Minimal commutes.  The onset and conclusion of Shabbos each week sets the weekly structure.  

And for a while, I drifted along.  Not feeling particularly well, accomplishing few of the semi-annual goals I write down every December and June, getting too absorbed in FB, then descending into Twitter, I realized that some structure would enhance things.  And a commitment to stopping what I should stop.

Each half year I include physical goals, usually stated as a desired waist circumference and weight which never achieve.  It won't get fulfilled without a system.  Thus, exercise now has a set time and intensity, one that I fully respect.  Stretching also has a time.  Measurements not attained, but I feel better. 

After endless interrupted eveings, I took control of sleep.  Set time to turn off screens, review what I did each day, turn out lights, and get up the next morning.  This has also been regimented.  Dental first, then weekly weight, then downstairs for some sunlight in the form of retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway.  Water first, then brew a k-cup in the same mug.  No email until I finish the coffee.  Treadmill if on tap that day right after coffee.  Crossword puzzles in the morning.

My week has creative activity built in.  Make a YouTube video every Monday afternoon.  Make dinner for Shabbos every Friday, with defrosting on Wednesday.  BP taken twice a week and recorded immediately in an Excel log.

Some things do not take well to appointments with myself.  For those, I have a timer. Housework fifteen minutes, reading twenty-five minutes, writing twenty-five minutes.  I learned to avoid zero minutes.

Social media got the heave-ho on Rosh Hashana.  FB gone, or at least my responses gone.  I will share my writing or videos onto my site.  The algorithm will do anything to get me back, going so far as to clutter my email with notices to look at what the people I care most about have posted.  I almost never bite.  Twitter gone.  Reddit selective to responses where I can help somebody else.  Just divesting this has freed up blocks of time I did not realize I had.  Sometimes I use it well, other times not.

This process of small upgrades has taken about two years.  Results display as mixed.  I feel better with sleep and exercise assurance.  My library of videos now exceeds 100, my writing much more than that.  Public recognition for any of this nil.  Expanded friendships perhaps starting to slide from my FB exit.  My Space largely completed, other house projects in different stages of making progress without renewal.

Yet, I benefit from a sense of what to pursue when.  Keeping promises to myself, the essence of this change, has rewarded me unconditionally.

Under the Bed

Some semi-annual projects carry over.  Progress without completion in the first cycle but visions on an end point with just another six months.  Repurposing my son's bedroom to another use twenty years after he vacated it has gotten my attention.  It's a big project, though one that probably could go to completion with some professional input.  It would not be fair to call him a hoarder.  He accumulated stuff gradually over a long time.  I had tried to make his room function for him, providing him a desk, workable chair, adding shelving to his closet.  But organization never captured his attention.  My father transported my dresser, nightstand and bed when he moved south in 1988, his grandson reaching the transition from crib to bed at the time.  Now I find myself not only with the furniture but a cluttered floor.  Over six months I hacked away at surfaces.  Thrift agencies got generous donations of clothing, though I separated things my son might find sentimental.  Those went in a drawer.  Paper got recycled.  Awards and correspondence from people and agencies important to him went into a secure case with a zipper.  Some drawers got purged.  Nothing has yet been relocated to a different part of my house, nor has anything been transported to his rather spacious home some five hours away.

His bed served as a flat surface to put things as I worked.  Eventually, though, that would become the centerpiece of the room, even if nobody else ever sleeps on that bed again.  Its mattress was my mattress, now 70 years old.  The mattress and box spring probably would not be sold today as too shoddy for a good night's sleep.  As a teenager, my father had to place a sheet of plywood between the mattress and box spring for support.  The bed frame had moved from its wall, needing to be repositioned.  The plywood and box spring had also shifted from their best sleeping position.  And what might have come to rest beneath them challenged my imagination.

Moving everything seemed a two-person job, though perhaps a younger, more muscular he-man could have managed it.  I made a date with my wife to do this.  Mattress moved into an adjacent hall. Slight slit in my left pinkie but no splinter moving the plywood.  Box spring had a plastic coating on its upper surface, a wise addition for the two year old who slept on it.  Its lower surface had a gauze covering stapled to the wood frame, now mostly separated making the inner coils of that box spring readily visible.  They seemed intact.  That ant the plywood also took their place in the adjacent hall.  Then I removed the three supporting slats, screwed their by my father after many episodes of my childhood where they dislodged. leaving one side of the mattress and box spring to slide off the frame.

With the floor exposed, likely for the first time in 38 years, I could see what accumulated.  My son had a feather comforter.  Earlier in the project I had harvested this.  Its duvet cover removed for washing, I could see considerable feather shedding from the blanket.  After washing the cover, I inserted the comforter back in with some difficulty, not noting any torn areas that might allow feathers to escape.  The floor beneath the mattress, though, looked something like a white bird mixed with a lot of other things.  I separated the objects into three basic categories:  paper, cloth, other.  The following day, I went through the paper, recycling most, tossing some, saving the photographs, letters from dear people, greeting cards.  Textiles mostly went into the trash with a few items harvested.  I found water and soda bottles suitable for recycling, writing instruments, an obsolete disposable film camera, coins, two light bulbs, a plastic cup from a casino, and a CD Walkman that probably still works.  Some to trash, others put in a plastic bin for later sorting.

Now the vacuum.  The upright Shark worked fine, though it sucked up its share of coins hidden within the feathers.  This machine does not do edges well.  I could not find the vacuuming toools but my wife did, so I can finish the job shortly.  The bed frame now sits flush against a far wall and a side wall.  Replacing the slats, box spring, plywood, and mattress remains a two-person job.  Then install the new mattress cover, make the bed with one of several twin sets that I came across.  The feather blanket should be tossed.  I have extra pillows.  Then buy a new bedspread.  Finally, declare that surface off limits for piling stuff upon it.  I probably have twin blankets somewhere, but if not, I can buy one of fiberfill.  Better to just discard the feathers.

Some projects need an inflection point.  My son's bed, inherited from me, provides that key element of his room's restoration.  It is unlikely anyone will sleep there, as my daughter's old room has remained tidy.  It contains a much more functional mattress, though no headboard.  My son's bed in position and declared off limits for clutter, the remaining contents of the floor's surface, less that feather-shedding comforter, should organize more easily.  

Working for 15 Minutes

 
Two-Minute Rule. A staple of productivity.  If a small task can be done in two minutes or slightly more, just do it. Despite my assorted annoyances with my current low-end smartwatch, it has an easily accessible two-minute countdown timer.  In that time, I can wash all four of the coffee mugs that fit on the outer holders of my dish rack.  If I want to wash utensils, I can do about two place settings before my wrist buzzes.  Watering my aerogarden takes less time than that, even if I have to fill up the two-liter harvested juice jug with fresh water.  Refreshing the potted herbs outside my front door takes a little longer.

Indeed, I can time most any task.  Not how long it takes to do, but how long I am willing to work on it.  My semi-annual projects for this cycle include things that have a lot of steps.  Slow and steady wins the ketchup race, the commercial from my childhood taught me.  Repurposing my adult son's bedroom will take many hours.  Boxes everywhere.  Paper dating back to grade school. Crammed dresser and nightstand drawers.  A desk that he rarely used but was my pride to provide it for him.  Electronics long gone obsolete.  That gets fifteen minutes per session on my timer.  I shoot for two sessions per week, but if only fifteen minutes at a time, I could do more without feeling overwhelmed.  And with the ability to sort things that he may treasure, his awards, birthday cards, special clothing.  Fifteen minutes of sorting or washing or discarding at a time gets it done over about three months.

My own bedroom gets only ten minutes at a time, two or three sessions a week.  I've already been able to vacuum my half.  Surfaces have started to appear functional, sorting just a few sections at a time while discarding very little.

My Space only gets six minutes at a time.  Not that I am unwilling to allocate more of my attention, but after six minutes something stymies additional progress.  But I can see more than an end point.  I recently recaptured my beloved Lands End Canvas Attaché, an indulgence purchase early in my career.  The Eddie Bauer cloth attache sits next to my desk chair.  It holds recreational items, mostly art.  And next to that I store a leather briefcase, purchased for $60 with the intent of looking upscale professional.  It's rarely been toted anywhere.  The cloth ones with neck straps captured the market due to better utility.  The leather one with its dual handles lets me see what I once aspired to have.  Six minutes at a time will bring My Space to what I had envisioned as what I would really do with a personalized part of my house, right down to my display of collegiate coffee mugs from the many campuses I've visited.  My many diplomas sit wrapped and in storage.  My Space has no reason to morph into a monument to myself.

My projects also include expressing myself in various ways as I move into the years of limited anticipated longevity.  Can I write a 90K word book?  If I set my timer for 90 minutes and write 750 words, it will add up.  

Other goals, or really systems to reach those goals, do not adapt as easily to a timer.  My treadmill sessions have a count-up timer, 30 minutes.  I set the intensity.  Stretching has a program of 8 minutes spread over 16 half-minute exercises.  I plan to host three dinners to challenge my creativity, social skills, and kitchen expertise.  Pulling this off requires steps, some like stove or oven times dictated by recipes.  I guess I could surf or read cookbooks for soup or dessert options using a timer, but this type of task I tend to work until the step has been completed.  I like going on day trips, having done one of the three intended for this cycle.  The timer does not aid in completing this.  Rather, I pick a day, destination, starting time, and return time, then do it as a unified effort.  Once every November, I deal with my IRA.  This includes allocation to charities working with my financial advisor, then a few weeks later, depositing the rest of my mandatory withdrawal in my checking account or a different investment account.  The timer doesn't properly segment everything.

But a third of the way through this semi-annual cycle, I've done rather well, even on my manuscript.  The short bursts seem productive, not at all stressful. Visible progress appears.  It makes for a good system to bring difficult initiatives to completion, something that has chronically challenged me.

Scheduling Myself

It's been a good year, or maybe half-year.  My semi-annual projects appear on course less than two months into the current cycle, and did mostly well for the previous six-month block.  Some projects easy, sure things.  Others need slow but steady.  Those have done better.

There might be many inflection points, though not overt tipping points.  I enrolled as a research subject for my state's flagship university.  It required a measure of physical activity that I could not have completed a year ago.  Some intense exercises to my right quadriceps and brisk walking over a half hour.  What enabled this was my commitment to a treadmill schedule and YouTube stretching video.  I set times to do these things, essentially appointments with myself.  I know the scheduled days but left flexibility with the times. Now I have a fixed time, rarely violated in the absence of another conflicting place I need to be.  And whether OLLI, synagogue, or doctor visits on schedule for the morning, I make an effort to walk on the treadmill first.

My personal writing has done better, though acceptance for publication has not. I get more submissions.  Enough shots on goal will eventually get through the net.  I have a fixed time to sign onto Word.  I've also tapped into the wisdom of experienced writers who do the same.  One that I admire sets a daily word quota, another writes a regular column with a word target.  I use a timer.  My intent had been 90 minutes five days weekly.  I find that my mind only focuses for about a half hour at a time.  But starting at a fixed time most days has made all the difference. 

Even recreation and personal learning get timed.  I watch YouTube after supper, usually with one long video and a few shorter.  Curiosity Stream gets watched on my smartphone before retiring for the night. I question the wisdom of this, as the blue light screen may disturb the sleep that follows, but a Curiosity Stream video remains a second tier priority.  Even sleep times, really in and out of bed permissions, have gotten fixed times.  My smartwatch tracks sleep stages, really the surrogate markers of sleep stages.  Middle of the night wakening remains unresolved.

While comfortably adapted to the unscheduled life of retirement, I realize there are advantages to a work model.  For forty years I went to work.  I did tasks assigned and undertaken voluntarily, irrespective of how I felt, either about what I was assigned to do or my self-assessment of energy.  The clock ruled.  I met deadlines.  I had times to do payroll and pay taxes.  Hospital time took place at predictable hours as did patient office encounters.  I expected myself to leave the house on time and not return until the expected tasks that should not wait until the next day had been done.  Scheduling has become harder, or more correctly, easily postponed with little immediate consequence.  But as my exercise schedule yielded its benefits over about a year, those small but consistent efforts accumulated.  My YouTube videos, plant maintenance, shabbos observance, and monthly financial review have all done better when a time is assigned to do them. I've done less well with house upgrades.  They just don't have the same priority as my health and mind, but they are reasonably finite tasks, though large ones.  I follow a timer, just don't show the same performance consistency that I have with other personal semi-annual initiatives.  No barrier to adding these to tasks I schedule myself to do.  Small consistent performance.  Large projects progress to completion.

Portions for One

It's been a while since I lived alone for more than a few days.  Approaching my 48th wedding anniversary.  We've been apart for a few days at a time, mostly business trips.  Even our hospitalizations have been few, local, and brief.  Over that time, raising kids brought transitions.  They were around, then they weren't.  Sleep away camp for each, first one, then both.  College.  First one, then both, never to return as part of our daily household once they as they pursued their careers.  Now their children, one arrived, one soon to arrive.  One a five hour drive, the other a five hour flight.  Our daughter needed Mom's assistance and support, as a sperm bank mother who also lives alone.  

I dropped my wife at the airport, anticipating a five-week separation.  I will visit the other coast with them in about three weeks, but the logistics of her apartment require me to stay somewhere else each night.  Still, we can eat our meals together while we share newborn care that week.  Safe arrival of wife with daughter confirmed.

That leaves me living by myself for a few weeks.  I started immediately upon returning from the airport by making our bed.  My wife usually does this.  Tomorrow night I need to put the garbage bags and recycling in their proper bins, then wheel each to the end of our driveway.  Another wife task.

My experience living alone is considerable, just not recent and never in a spacious suburban house that can absorb me with chores.  Unlike my student days, I have few pressing deadlines and no externally imposed exams.  I also have little desire to seek recreation as an escape, or maybe supplement, to assigned work.  My semi-annual projects get pursued whether or not my wife occupies our house.  Some of those initiatives, though, move through stages better with the assistance of a second person.

The list of twelve lies to my left on a whiteboard held to a file cabinet with a magnet.  Writing to create and submit.  Might consider a day trip.  Not going to invite any friends for Shabbos dinner, though I would consider an unlikely invitation extended to me.  Exercise, sleep hygiene, and prudent eating continue, though the eating part may need some decisions.  And household upgrades, those decluttering or restoration projects, do not need a second person's help at their current stages.  My wife's car could use some attention.  I can do that.

Food will likely require some adaptation.  Supermarkets do not focus on sole occupants of homes.  Bread comes in loaves of more than a pound or as rolls or bagels in packages of six.  Maybe move half of each package into a separate bag which can go in the freezer.  Eggs come as a dozen.  In recent years, I have only made myself one at a time, but I could expand to two.  Or I could use four as a quiche or as a cake.  Veggie burgers or Beyond Beef can be separated into individual patties.  Frozen vegetables are easily apportioned.  While I usually buy potatoes or onions in a sack of 3-5 pounds, they are sold individually.  I have the option of buying one or two.  Same with apples, oranges, and bananas.  I've not seen milk sold in an 8 oz carton in a long time.  I use almost none.  Snacks, those munchies the doctor prefers I not consume, come in big packages.  So does cereal.  So does the ice cream that I buy.  A 48 oz carton will last a long time.  It may pay to spend a bit more per ounce and opt for a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Or buy a package of Klondike Bars or Sandwiches instead of a carton.  Cereal, another munchie rather than breakfast food, comes in a big box.  Coffee, my most common beverage, has many single serving options.  K-cup by far the easiest, but I also have an individual Melitta cone and a one-cup French press.  Oatmeal now comes prepackaged as individual servings.  I know how to portion pancake mix to make a single large flapjack.  I won't go hungry.  I won't waste.  What I create in the kitchen still needs clean-up.  That does not change much whether I cook only for myself or for a couple.  I very rarely eat out, though I did that more often as a student.  My kids' generation orders take-out and delivery.  I rarely do.  Might I go out for a slice of pizza more often, or go to a coffee house, or the brew pub?  Not on the plan, but it would not surprise me to default that way.

I know surprisingly few people who live alone.  My wife's in-laws are widowed, her sister never married.  Some folks from the synagogue, mostly widowed.  We once had bachelors, though most have passed away.  Almost no divorced people.  They seem pretty self-reliant.  Never asked any of them if people invite them over for Shabbos or even Seder and Thanksgiving.

On day 1, I foresee the challenge of self-reliance.  Not having my wife with me at supper or in bed will not be devastating, knowing she is alive, active, and being infinitely helpful somewhere else.  Our modern communication devices keep us in touch.  I don't see myself compensating for a few weeks of relative solitude by doomscrolling on the cell phone or laptop.  I have a firm concept and a realistic commitment to pursuing my semi-annual projects.  I'll probably make more of an effort to find some people time each day, whether at a store or synagogue, to make myself more interactive in my wife's absence.  But I really do not need significant surrogates to animate my empty house.  Just some minor adjustments to living by myself as I once did successfully.

Ice Storm

Cancellations.  My synagogue transferred its morning service to Zoom.  OLLI canceled its early morning sessions, allowing two hours for maintenance staff to prepare the parking areas and building.  When I retrieved the newspaper from the end on the driveway, the surface did not seem overly slippery but a coating of ice covered both cars.  My front and rear windshield heaters will defrost that.  The side windows do not have as secure a way of melting this.

With the right equipment, my wife and I made our vehicles safely mobile within a few minutes.  When she lowered her passenger window, the glass descended while the sheet of ice remained stationary.  Then he tapped out the ice, leaving her with a visible surface.  I tried that too, successful on one of four side windows.  The electric defroster of the rear windshield melts ice a lot faster than the warm air blown over the front windshield.  While waiting for that, I took the scraper to the other three side windows.  All had a thin sheet of water separating the glass from the ice.  I only need to make a few cracks, then scrape and brush.  By then, the rear window had a similar melting at the interface of glass and ice.  It scraped right off.  

My front windshield required more patience.  The warm air begins at the base, by the dashboard.  Then it ascends.  Usually I wait for the melting to allow the windshield wipers to perform the removal.  This time, I tried the scraper.  If created rectangles and other polygons of ice, partially thawed.  By pushing upwards towards the car's roof, I could get these to shatter at the top of the windshield, then drift downward.  The wipers handled the shattered segments but did poorly with the remaining polygons.  It did not take more than a few minutes for those to melt, so I will soon be on my way to today's remaining class, though the roads remain a question mark.  The car's thermometer registered a temperature slightly above freezing as does my home computer report of regional weather.  Except for a bridge en route, I anticipate the road surface will not create major skidding.  I have my choice of bridge.  The one more traveled, which is not the one I usually take to get to OLLI, may be the safer option.c

The delayed opening created some ambivalence.  Of my courses, the one canceled seemed my most expendable.  The class, live and remote, watches a video, and then discusses the topic.  That's a good way to pool everyone's ignorance, as the three moderators have expertise with very few subjects that the expert on the screen outlines.  Usually, though, there is somebody in the class, more often a person in live attendance, who has professional experience with the day's topic.

And what might I have been doing instead?  This being a treadmill respite morning, I hoped to allocate this unexpected block of time for creative activity.  The motivation was not there.  I am taking this week off from FB, Reddit, and Twitter so that time sink did not impede working on my twelve semi-annual projects.  The need to make the car mobile did.  Had the class been operational, I still would not have accomplished much at home leaving at the earlier time.  So I did what I do with treadmill time, not quite a half hour, that does not have me exercising?  Washed dishes, had a more substantial breakfast.  It's not my semi-annual projects, but it requires little concentration.  

Despite the delayed schedule for the morning, my daily pursuits will simply reset.  A new class in OLLI's late morning slot.  Focused projects when I get home.

Ice just becomes a minor snafu with little real consequence.

Scouting November

Must dos.  Should dos.  They are not the same.  While totally bored at a volunteer activity Halloween morning, I took a multicolored pen and writing pad out of my cross-chest carrier, then headed to an unoccupied room with desks and chairs on the second floor.  Setting the pen to its green option, I began jotting down all the tasks for the month that would commence the following day.  Twenty-two items with three added later.  The only truly mandatory on the list seems to be keeping a cardiology appointment made more than six months earlier.  I think I have symptoms to discuss, and never leave the exam room without either the doctor or her NP thinking I should return for a test of some type.  Changing the clocks to Eastern Standard Time probably counts as mandatory, assigned to a single night.  I suppose Thanksgiving is another fixed appointment that cannot be changed, though I did cancel dinner on short notice two years back when my wife took ill.  Other things have deadlines in November.  A synagogue dinner.  A short-story writing contest that I am willing to fork over $25 to have my submission turned down.  Baking a treat for the charitable organization that my congregation supports.  My wife's choral group has a concert I need to attend.  Some things will happen irrespective of my participation.  The Election.  I voted early and will know who got elected in due time.  Flu shot would be a good idea.  My Osher Institute classes continue through November.

Mostly, though, things that I want to do dominate the list.  I will need to withdraw the minimums from my two IRAs, but it does not have to be in November.  I've not had a big snow accumulation in a long time.  My dormant snowblower could use a revival, but if that does not happen, I could hire somebody with a plow.  My gardens ought to have the seasonal vegetables uprooted in preparation for next spring.  Not much happens if I neglect that.  I've scheduled a platelet donation, one of those fulfilling tasks put on hold for two months due to illness.  Some travel:  Philadelphia and NYC.  Nothing happens if I stay home.  I'd also like to take a not too far overnight trip in December.  Could make choose a place and make reservations.  Hanukkah comes late this year but I still like to have gift selections made before Black Friday.  The Jewish community is running a course for which I have registered.  Two of the four evenings are in November.  I'm surprisingly indifferent to the curriculum.  

And then I have things that I aspire to accomplish, though nothing happens if I fall short.  I need to submit some of what I have produced for publication.  An Osher course teaches how to build a Web Site.  I always wanted one. Launch by Thanksgiving.  Home upkeep has exceeded my capacity and my wife's interest.  I convinced her we need a pro.  Now to find one.  And I've not used my fireplace in many years.  This winter.  And we won a raffle.  My wife and I need to select non-profit recipients by year's end.

While not showing up for the cardiologist appointment or my wife's concert would have some negative consequences, as would the penalties for neglecting my IRA, nearly everything else registers as elective.  Enriching to me in different ways, worth pursuing.  A month to do these things seems ample.

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.

Fall Reset

Return to school has come and gone without me.  As I toured Tennessee in late August, Virginia Tech, U of TN, and Vanderbilt had already moved in for the fall semester, leaving me unable to find a parking space near the bookstore at two of them.  When I returned home, Labor Day weekend got set aside with a higher priority, surviving highly symptomatic Covid-19.  I missed the in-person first week of OLLI.  Practicalities for my Designated Driver forced my follow-up EGD from the fall to the winter.  My vegetable garden did not have significant yield.  The Holy Days come late on the secular calendar.  It's been a tough transition.

While delayed a couple of weeks, I'm sufficiently recovered to engage in autumn activities.  This being a Presidential year, I voted in the local primaries, will learn more about the candidates, national and local, on my screens this week, and affirm that my preferences are sound.   I am ready for my mid-September Torah reading, then begin polishing the YK reading.  I have to greet electronically three old friends.  My kids plan to visit for RH.  I will need to assemble challenging dinners for RH and the Sukkah.  OLLI invited me to give a presentation which will need priority focus.  Exercise collapsed with travel and illness.  That needs restoration with judicious pacing.  

The final quarter of the calendar year brings a reconing of my semi-annual initiatives, some going well, others disappointing but salvagable. 

And throw in some recreation, fishing, maybe golf, drawing, photos.  Football has not engaged me as the NFL and colleges resume, but I should consider a live game.  And perhaps a day in NYC.

While our calendar year begins in January, our activity transition remains in proximity of Labor Day.

Making Committments

A friend from synagogue asked me to help out with a project. While I have doubts about the project itself, his request to do the kitchen component matches with my interests, skills, and desire for a challenge.  However, Sunday mornings, the assigned time, has been my protected time for much of my adult life.  Every Sunday morning, I retreat to my screen to see what's current.  I take out my planning papers, Semi-Annual Projects, and multicolored pens which allows me to outline my aspirations for the coming week.  At one time I went out for breakfast with some frequency.  Or I went fishing.  Or I went to a coffee house for a half-hour or so of quiet time with a writing pad to my right and the porcelain cup to my left.  Committing to a Sunday morning incurs opportunity costs.  None of what I might have done instead is irreversibly sacrificed.  My week will get outlined.  In my working years, and perhaps a bit beyond that, the planning pouch with its pens and papers got toted to the coffee shop.  I can go fishing anytime.  The synagogue event serves coffee and has other people present.  What I would miss may be less the project itself than the control over when I pursue them.  

And the date given is nearly three months in advance.  I don't even schedule my vacations three months in advance.  Or choose my OLLI courses that way.  While my initiatives are Semi-Annual, and they all have the completion deadline component of a SMART goal, virtually none have an assigned date and time.  Appointments go on my weekly outline and whiteboard as I compile a list each Sunday morning.  They do not become part of Semi-Annual Projects which function better with flexibility.  Appointments months in advance have a way of hanging over me that long.  I dislike that.  It should be far enough in the future for me to prepare, though not so far as to have me staring at my calendar.  I know when Seder and Yom Kippur are, but I don't bring either into my need for action until they approach.  For time in the kitchen, a week or two will suffice, if I am willing to yield that Sunday morning at all.

Day Trips

Took my first of six intended summer day trips.  An easy one, to a museum near Independence Hall.  The Weitzman Museum of American Jewish History offered an extraordinary display, one more than worthy of subsequent visits, which allow more attention to detail.  The summer travel also should include two trips to the beach, one intended next week, and two to NYC by cheap bus from Philadelphia or NJ Transit from Trenton.

This visit offered a learning curve for some of the future outings.  My age allows me a SEPTA Senior Pass, which enables mostly unlimited public transit in the Philadelphia region.  My home is a ten minute drive from the train station.  I did not know about suspension of parking fees until I had already deposited four quarters in the slot with my parking space number.  I had ridden the train multiple times before, never really accomplishing useful work on it.  Instead, the picture windows lure me to a variety of vistas, mostly shabby towns just north or where I get on, more attractive suburban housing in the middle, followed by parts of Philadelphia that could use major cleanup, and ending with the glory of gleaming high rises as central Philadelphia approaches.  I depart at the last stop.  My destination being a little farther than I wanted to walk, and wanting to check out the bus area where I might catch the transportation to NYC, I entered the subway.

I would need to know how long it took from departing the SEPTA train to arriving at the bus station, including waiting for subway.  Getting a subway train in the direction I wanted to go required me to use an overpass.  It took longer for the car to arrive than I expected.  In addition, the one I boarded did not stop at the Spring Garden Station where the buses congregate, so I really do not know how long it would take to get the train that does.  Nor do I have a sense of the safety around that station.  So really cheap bus to NYC may not be the best option.  I got off near my museum destination, which lies a mere block from the subway stop.

Big mistake, not eating breakfast or seeking lunch before entering the museum.  Despite the display's attractiveness, I felt hungry while touring the exhibit.  Because of this, I left an hour earlier than planned, prompted by a need to find some lunch.  I knew Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market, one of America's grandest food courts, was near the SEPTA station.  I opted to walk in that direction, though really intended to pick up a sandwich a little closer to the museum.  Despite this being the top tourist district of Philadelphia, there were no food trucks like I found parked in a line outside Washington's Smithsonian.  Kosher Deli would be a great treat.  Kosher near me search on my smartphone located it a bit farther than I wanted to go, even by bus, also included with my SEPTA Senior Pass.  I headed back to Center City.  To my surprise, there were very few sandwich places along the six blocks I walked.  Not wanting to go to the Reading Terminal Market, I entered a small bagel place, bought a sandwich that charged more than I expected from the display price, but had a satisfying late lunch followed by a very disappointing donut from one of the city's iconic donut chains.  Then back to SEPTA and home by late afternoon.  Between departure from home and return, I had devoted some six hours, accomplishing little other than visiting my museum destination.

Moreover, once I got home, I felt too exhausted to pursue my Daily Task List.  Treadmill done before I left home.  But household chores, writing, planning, rehearsing an upcoming talk all required more focus than I felt able to provide.  That day trip, two hours in a terrific museum, had basically superseded anything else I might have done that day.  Going to NYC would be more so, though the two hours on the very comfortable motor coach with access to electronics would permit some useful activity en route in each direction.  Still, the reality of the clock is that it will be difficult to arrive in Manhattan before 1PM using my free or discounted public transit, and I would also have to head back.  So maybe four or five hours in NYC and even more time getting there and back.  I may not want to do this a second time if the first trip proves problematic.  To be sure, I will be doing little else of value that day.

I could make the same comment about the beach, though it is offset by other pleasures.  I like driving downstate, even more so when I have my wife with me.  We can leave early, get a hoagie made someplace along the way to eat either at a picnic table or on the sand.  At the end, we can stop somewhere, often for an early dinner.  So it is a real outing.  What I don't get to do are the things that occupy nearly all of my Daily Task Lists.  Still, there is much to support a day dedicated to being with my wife.  The pursuit of my Semi-Annual projects just won't happen that day.

Schedule Struggles

One laudable personal achievement post-pandemic has been the introduction of routines, primarily morning, but really extending much of the day, into the post-supper times.  I have a wake time with few deviations from it.  Sleep time has not established itself quite as well, but close enough to create something of a box of time for my waking hours.  Every day, with some modifications for shabbos and yom tovim, I start with dental care, make coffee which I bring upstairs to My Space, retrieve the newspaper from the end of the driveway for my wife irrespective of weather, wash some dishes, then retreat with my coffee mug to my desk to begin the day.  A blog effort, some crosswords, FB notifications while I sip the first cup, invariably brewed in a Keurig Express machine from pods obtained from a Shop-Rite discount.  Then treadmill if scheduled that day, time dependent on when my OLLI class begins.  On-site at OLLI completes most mornings.

That leaves a mostly unstructured block of time every afternoon, though my personal prime energy time has been the mornings.  Afternoons have very occasional appointments, the time to tackle tasks on my Daily Task List to bring Semi-Annual projects to fruition.  What I have found, though, is the morning structure, created by me, makes my mornings productive.  Afternoons have been less so, with my Musts largely dispatched by the time I return home from OLLI.  I have tried priorities, and work on them, but often do not bring projects to completion, in large part because I am often unclear on what completion entails.  Some things I do well, particular those with a future deadline like an upcoming Torah reading assignment or a submission to a writing contest.  I have a way of pacing myself knowing the end point but often flounder when there is either no completion deadline or I cannot grasp what the final result of my effort should look like.  I have tried to create structure with a timer which encourages me to define the time block for working on something but not for determining the final result.   I suppose there is no reason why I cannot do the same structural definitions of tasks for the afternoon that have succeeded in the mornings.

The evenings go a little better.  Supper gets prepared by me most nights, with eating time a little before 7PM, linking my PM medicine to supper preparation with nearly complete success.  I have a defined time for twice-weekly stretching in late afternoons and a defined time to record my weekly YouTube video, with very few postponements.  Then I have a recreational block, TV time, though more productive than the endless sitcoms I watched prior to subscribing to a comprehensive cable service.  I gravitate to YouTube shows about the trajectories of religion and videos of travel to places I might like to visit but realistically won't. That alone defines my personal interests.  There is Netflix, worth the monthly fee, where my interest varies between short series on assorted topics or more recently stand-up comedy presentations.  I do not usually try to catch up on what I should have done during the afternoon but didn't, nor do I do much housework.  Often I will read from a book I am pursuing, the amount determined by length or time before I begin to read. And I work on Torah readings during the evening hours, pacing myself to achieve fluency by a certain date.  Bed at a fairly specified time, a very helpful rather recent introduction.

So my lost opportunity appears to occur in the afternoons, that unstructured time box between my return from OLLI and supper preparation.  I need to add structure, a predictable routine, for tackling the Semi-Annual projects that lack deadlines, or even a definition of completion.  The templates for doing this are well established and successful most mornings.  As OLLI reaches its summer hiatus, that amorphous time interval will greatly expand.  It needs to be recaptured by the many things I'd like to do but have not taken advantage of my ability to perform at top level.

Purging a Closet

Getting control of storage spaces has been ax semi-annual project addressed with mixed diligence.  I started with my half of my bedroom walk-in.  Shelves cleared.  Clothing that has no prospect of wearing again removed.  One Lawn and Leaf bag worth donated to Goodwill, probably another Kitchen Bag still to go.  Shoes not really sorted but at least placed in a box and a bag.  There is a shoe rack, leaning and not yet repaired.  I really only wear three pairs of shoes on a mostly rotating basis, with two pairs of dress shoes for Shabbos.   The bathroom closet adjacent to the bedroom had been sorted a few years earlier.  Not perfect, but maintained well enough to find things.

The two closets with sliding doors in My Space have been emptied.  All clothing donated.  Things I want to keep have returned to shelves.  Luggage that I use occupies its floor space, along with my wife's preserved wedding dress.  The clothing rails have remained empty.  Paper has gone to a mixture of recycling and shredding depending on content.  A small amount has been refiled downstairs.  Finalizing My Space in all its aspects remains a semi-annual project that always makes progress without ever really nearing completion.

We have a main bathroom with three closets, a full one next to the bathtub and two smaller ones under our paired sinks.  The one to the right, initially intended to hold shoeshine stuff, sorted by black, brown, tan, and cordovan, had expanded far beyond that.  I simply took everything out, sorting what I could claim as mine.  Coins, grooming products.  Then some sorting by item's purpose:  soap, things for hair, things for shaving, first aid.  All were placed on the floor for my wife to address.  Eventually completed.  Then the left closet.  We needed some plumbing repair, so the plumber emptied it.  Really not much stuff.  One box filled mostly with unwearable clothing designated as rags.  We've neither used the rags nor added to the box for about 25 years.  I extracted each piece of cloth, and found a few things not cloth.  Virtually nothing worthy of retention.  I found a kitchen bag, filled it with cloth, then all non-cloth just went into the bathroom's waste can. Even the box could not be recycled.

So now I have a virtually empty under-sink closet.  Lots of possibilities.  None better right now than leaving it vacant.

Did Instead

Third full day without signing on to X, FB, or Reddit.  I am accessing my email less, but still more than the three times a day anticipated.  

I did my usual activities, those things I would have done anyway without a social media restriction. Up on time, treadmill on time, on-site OLLI session in the morning, Zoom session in the afternoon.  I had a decent lunch.  Made a trip to Trader Joe's for a minimum of things.  I'd have done all of these and still engaged in my usual allotment of social media.

The purpose, though, was to focus on things that had been neglected.  After my OLLI class, I began to tackle the final section of the main bathroom closet.  I did not time the effort.  Some minor sorting.  Things that go to the basement, things that go first level.  Plastic bags are now inside a single plastic bag.  Very little discarded.  Two large bags of health and grooming supplies that will need sorting.  Finished the book I was reading, the third of three in this semi-annual project, the one on a Jewish theme from a bound book.  I began composing an article on Loneliness.  Target 900 words, edited and submitted for publication.  Sometimes you just have to start.  About 300 words, most not worthy of appearing in print for strangers to read.  Really, not that much progress.

I made a list of the Daily Tasks that I am most likely to make excuses to languish.  Most still languish.  I did a good job reading, though.  Tackling two very long articles in The Atlantic, two difficult ones in The Forward.  I would like to comment on one or two of them as Letters.  And I still have time before I make a semi-special supper.  I also feel pretty decent, which will enable me to work some after supper.  

Focus remains a challenge.  There are some articles on how to improve this.  It will take more than just eliminating a common distraction like social media.

Don't Sign On

This is the week for no Social Media.  No Reddit, No Twitter, not even FB.  I checked the March Birthdays, as I would be willing to wish old friends a wonderful special day, but there are none this week. Reddit icon removed from opening screen.  X never on it.  FB stays, as I need some discipline not to open it.  Email stays.

Despite rationing these things, I never set a chess clock or electronic equivalent to measure when I am signed on.  It's likely more time than I would have assessed by unmeasured impression.  I think I can shun this for a week.

So what do I and everyone else crave from these sites?  The designers of these programs know that.  Twitter is basically a wasteland where people of prominence pitch their political opinions.  It is also a place where The Atlantic runs articles that I have read for others to comment upon whether they have read it or not.  It may also be where a lot of lonely people seek the illusion of connection.  I will occasionally get a message that somebody decided to follow me.  I open their profiles, which invariably show them following 4K people, which may not all be real people, but only have 40 people following them.  There seems something desperate about that.  Or at least unlikely to make a lonely person less lonely.

Reddit will be a lot harder to shun this week.  It is a platform where I am helpful to people that I do not know.  I should be helpful to people I do not know.  And the designers notify me of comments based on my posts in my email inbox, which I have started deleting unopened.

FB was fine when I first enrolled fifteen or so years back.  It reconnected me to people from my past.  I acquired some tolerance for people who went on trajectories I would have avoided, or acquired ideologies very much in opposition to mine.  Its program algorithms were pretty effective at picking out things I liked, from my favorite comic strips to places I've been or regret never having been.  But I am overwhelmed by the unwelcome, while the friendships of people from my fondest past have mostly ebbed.  Very little is stimulating.

So without this for a week, or indefinitely might be better, what replaces the time allotted to it, or more accurately,  frittered by it?  Glancing at my whiteboard where my semi-annual projects appear in the left column, I've never denied myself a chance to pursue any because of social media.  Though it has been an interruption at times from what I should have been doing instead.  But sometimes signing on to FB or Reddit is a reward for a noble effort in something on that project list.  There are times when I go out to a park or out to a coffee shop to escape the attraction of my laptop, or even bring the laptop with me for a pre-determined purpose.  I may be able to do more of those things.

First morning off the X, FB, Reddit going OK.  No withdrawal symptoms.  No dramatic urge to migrate to email.  No refocus to my big personal initiates either.  

Separated Classes

One day each week, my first class begins at 9AM but the second not until 12:45PM.  That creates a two-and-a-half-hour unscheduled block of time which I have used in different ways.  It does not pay to return home and then return to OLLI, so I pack a few things to bring with me.  The site provides coffee.  There is also a catering service that offers lunch for purchase.  One of my favorite pizza/hoagie places is a short drive away, though parking not always at hand.  Thus far I have made my own lunch.  Usually a sandwich, either PBJ or cheese, a snack, a fruit, and a bag of herb tea, for which OLLI provides hot water and a clean recyclable cup.  I eat in the cafeteria, usually by myself at a round table just before the midday classes let out.  I pack my laptop and a cheap plastic portfolio.  I also take a microcassette recorder.  While my smartphone has a recorder, flashlight, and electronic level, none of these surrogates are really as good as a real tape recorder, flashlight on keychain, or for serious carpentry, a level made by Stanley.  Don't do any carpentry at OLLI.  

Some weeks I work on projects from my Semi-annual list.  I've practiced a long Torah reading obligation.  That day of the week, I always read weekly Parsha commentaries and tackle a New England Journal article, each available to me during those 2.5 hours.  I can plan my upcoming vacation or ponder a more remote one that I aspire to.  

Other weeks, I leave my things in the backpack.  I sit at a table and create a conversation with one or more people at the table.  It helps that the early morning class is devoted to a video and discussion on contemporary controversies.

I try not to surf the web, whether my email or social media.  I've been mostly successful at avoiding that time sink in favor of things I cannot get elsewhere, primarily proximity to other people, or dedicating myself to things that require my mind to focus in a place that has few distractions.  

The challenge of keeping this segment of unstructured time fulfilling, if not actually productive, has been a gratifying one.  Sometimes Me at my best, or at least a Decent Me, one very respectful of this Me Time.  

This part of my weekly schedule lasts less than two months and will be hard to duplicate without the separated classes bookending the pluripotent 2.5 hours.  I have found it a weekly focus, at least while it lasts.

Blocks of Time

What might I be doing right now?  And for how long before something gives?  That might be attention span if I am reading, legs if I am exercising, competition from something else that I should be doing or might prefer to do.  

If I not only commit myself to rising from bed at 7AM and not return to bed until 10PM, but really keep those hours, there should be more than enough hours to complete all but one of my SMART goals for this semi-annual project cycle.  My Space should sparkle.  Closets should serve their optimal purposes.  I can write and submit for others to read what my mind processes.  I can entertain guests.  Reading quotas can get done.  Fifteen hours every day should enable that.

It once did.  Except it is not really fifteen hours of focus on the twelve initiatives.  It is a measure of fatigue that arises before 10PM.  If I want to work on something at a coffee shop, I need to get there and back and order the coffee.  None of my twelve SMART goals other than some travel destinations really require me to leave my house.  But I do leave my house, as my car is my freedom.  None of the twelve projects make any significant progress while I am in transit.

Instead, I think a better approach would be to allocate specific blocks of those fifteen daily hours, with priority going to the ones I will make excuses not to do, primarily matching the contents of my mind and imagination with my keyboard sessions.  Or my efforts to upgrade my house or my relationships with a timer.

And start today.

Doing the Noodgies

My Daily Task List has its share of items that repeat, even some that reflect Semi-Annual projects.  There is always an excuse to put certain things off, that evil of procrastination.  I'm not lazy, nor are most people who keep deferring what they ought to be doing.  Sometimes these postponed activities really are less important than the ones actively pursued.  Often they have no deadline beyond what is self-imposed.  Invariably there is no immediate adverse consequence to neglecting them. And sometimes they are ignored for the right reason, as in not really part of essential personal objectives.  Whatever the reason, legit, psychological, laziness, these tasks never really exit the Daily Task List, which functions in the manner of a Roach Motel, checking in but never checking out.  They are often noodgie things, stuff that will bring satisfaction, sometimes even important, but often tedious to do.  And sometimes there is a fear, mostly legit, of what will be disclosed once pursued.

Because of this, I designated today to tackle those repetitive items on my Daily Task List that have long overstayed their welcome.

As usual, I created this day's list from my weekly objectives, which are the action elements of my Semi-Annual personal goals.  I then circled in red, the items which had been neglected too long.

1. Read a news article clipped from the paper but not read for weeks since its publication.
2. Submit an op-ed I had written a few weeks ago which depended on my understanding that article.
3. A Committee that I recently joined asked me to do something.
4. I've not opened the Recreation Case that I created months ago. It's a canvas attaché where I keep art and drawing supplies mostly.
5. Spend an evening with my wife.
6. Track down my aging step-mother, my father's widow, who had some phone number changes.
7. Speak to my attorney on a lingering matter.
8. Outline the novel that will make me famous, or maybe the subject should be its non-fiction theme.
9. Start writing a paragraph or two to confirm I am serious about authoring an 80K word work.
10. Decide what car repairs should be done soon and which can wait.
11. Get my snowblower functional before the next coating, on a day unseasonably warm but damp.

Each item on my list for weeks, some longer.  Each repetitively pre-empted by something else for the right reason, or my psyche imposing avoidance for the wrong reason.

So how'd I do?

Read the article.  Even tried to nominate the article for a local reporting Pulitzer.  Deadline for nomination tonight.  I did not know how to use the form and really didn't want to pay the $75 submission form, so I wrote to the newspaper's editor and asked him to consider dealing with the Pulitzer possibility.

Deferred submitting op-ed to next week, to see if the editor-in-chief responds to me first.

Probably better to do the committee work when I go on site in two weeks.

Drew a pear with my drawing pencil.

Wife time after supper

Stepmother tomorrow.  Found the most recent phone numbers.

Spoke to attorney for 20 minutes.  He reassured my worst fears.

Started the novel outline but spent less time on it than allotted by my timer.

So not a bad effort considering these are the things I have avoided the most.  And I still had some time for reading the things I read each day, posting on restricted social media, reconnecting with a friend or two, taking care of a bank errand, slicing the cantaloupe I bought yesterday, doing the scheduled treadmill and stretch, going out for coffee, reviewing some commentaries on the upcoming Torah portion. 

Write when my outline is further along.

Chose the repairs.  Schedule them tomorrow

Too damp for snowblower repair, which needs to take place outside.

There will always be projects that for the right or wrong reasons, I just don't care to do.  But I did a lot of them by assigning a day, and even designated times within the day to set aside the more attractive efforts to place some of the others as rediscovered.  There is something very gratifying to do some of these things, even when their appearance on successive Daily Task Lists drags indefinitely.  And the stuff that I usually gravitate to, those Semi-Annual initiatives, did not get seriously neglected from a one day diverted effort.