How to waste time productively

For all of us who work at home and have to be self-starting every single day but some days have little to show.

1.     Make a to-do list for the day. Rank the tasks by order of difficulty.

2.     Start with the most difficult task. Try to do it. Fail. Set it aside.

3.     Have a tiny snack to reward yourself for trying.

4.     Go back to the list. Read it over, forwards and backwards. Set it aside.

5.     Check email. Maybe God will send you help via email, you never know.

6.     Read all the listserv mail. Follow the links. Follow more links such as what the Bachelorette is up to or the latest in Nordic cuisine. Follow links until you are sick of following links.

7.     Look at the list for anything that requires a modicum of physical activity. If there’s nothing there, invent something like washing your bike shorts out by hand. Better yet, do a load of laundry and hang it all out to dry, arranged by color or type of clothing.

8.     Eat lunch because it’s probably time. Cook something nutritious and tasty that takes a bit of time and clears out refrigerator space so you don’t have to feel guilty about eating before you are really hungry. How about: fried rice using leftover rice, bits of Sunday’s Greek restaurant chicken, and all the CSA vegetables you can stuff into it. Feed anyone else in the house whom you can impress with your care and creativity. 

9.     Go back to the list. Choose the easiest thing on it. Do that.

10. Reward yourself for doing anything at all on a slow day. Call a friend and chat about something fun.

11. Get the mail. Read a really interesting article in a magazine.

12. Read something you wrote yesterday that was really good. Pat yourself on the back.

13. Go back to the list. Decide when you might be able to do the things you clearly will not get done today.

14. Plan dinner. Get it started.

15. Go out for some real exercise.

16. Eat a really good dinner that uses at least three CSA fruits and vegetables and is pretty. Have a glass of red wine with it.

17. Watch a movie or read until you’re ready to drop.

18. Get up the next morning. Drink your tea or coffee. Go back to the most difficult thing on the list. Do it. (What was so hard about it, anyhow?)