Wednesday, May 31, 2017

And Then It Is Tomorrow

My columns are posted on Wednesdays, but on a very inconsistent basis. Why is that? To be honest, it is all my fault. I could blame work getting in the way, or I could blame my addiction to Facebook for taking up my time, but it is really all of my fault. Have you ever noticed that you have all of this stuff you want to do today, and then it is tomorrow? Is that a bad thing? Is that a good thing? Is that even a thing? It is probably a little of all of them, and the end result means that there truly are not enough hours in the day.

My life is a little different than yours thanks to my medical status. I don't have mornings anymore as my medication knocks me out first thing in the morning and I sleep until almost noon. So why don't I just switch to taking my medication at night? Because the doctors all say that I need to take this med or that med at the earliest point in my day. The medication and cancer all gang up on me to cost me half a day. I may have to start talking to my doctors about spreading this stuff out a little more.

So my day starts around 11:00 a.m., which means that I need to pack a lot into a few hours. I try, but I get distracted. I am, however, getting better at not letting weirdos on Facebook distract me for too long. It is a serious addiction that I am working on and making some progress. But I would have to say that if there was one thing that prevents me from being productive all day long, it is Facebook. So I am fighting that demon and slowly, slowly, winning.

I also cannot stay up very late most nights. Once again, cancer takes a lot from you, and one of the things it takes that no one talks about is time. I used to be able to go to bed at 1:00 a.m., get up at 8:00 a.m., and get things done all day. But I can no longer do that, so that crams even more stuff I gotta do into a shorter period of time.

Then there are the babies. A four-year-old and a two-year-old require a lot of time, and I have very little to give. My son takes care of his children like a great father would, and my wife is a very hands-on Nana that gives the babies hours of her day every day. I used to be able to do that too, but not anymore. So the few free hours I do have during the day get divided up between the babies and whatever else I have to do before I finally pass out for the night.

I would say that it is time to shake-up my medication routine to try and get my life back. It is time to talk to the doctors and tell them that I can no longer take all of these medications at once, and need to move them around. So that would solve one problem, but we all know that other problems will creep up. They always do. There are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done, but yet we all try.

I think that everyone should do a time management audit once a year to make sure they are maximizing their time. I know that my unpredictable schedule causes some people to get pretty upset. Craig has got to be fuming sometimes when I say I will do something and then it gets done way too late in the day (like today), and I have no excuse for it. All I can do is sit down this weekend and find the time to fix my scheduling issues. Of course, I will have to do that after I get the house clean and get some errands run. Oh, and I have to get my office organized so I can get to important things. I want to move some stuff around and clean up my desk and...

Then it is tomorrow.

George N Root III is a Lockport resident who does not procrastinate. There are just not enough hours in the day. Follow him on Twitter @georgenroot3, or send him a message at georgenroot3@gmail.com.