Monday, September 29, 2008

Off the Tracks

Plan your work, work your plan. If you don’t know where you're going, any road will get you there. Make “to do” lists. Set goals. Be the ball.

Some days I love a good axiom and some days I’d be happy to take an axe to an axiom.

I had a plan (or at least a general idea) for today. I figured I’d do some administrative stuff and figuratively clean off the old desk and have a nice easy paperwork day.

I got into the office a little late because we got out of the house a little late. Since Mona is hourly I take her to the office first, then drop off The Peanut and finally go in myself. I started by day about ten minutes to nine. I was reading my daily comics and checking the news and eeeaaasssing into the morning when a guy from another slightly related group came by my desk and asked if I’d heard about the passing of a mutual friends (and coworker) father last Friday.

I hadn’t, but since he gave me the heads up I went to the funeral mass to pay my respects. His father was 91 and had a bunch of children and grandchildren to mourn his passing. It was a good long life so not nearly as tragic as too many other funerals often are. But good gravy it was a long affair. It was a full Catholic mass along with a short VFW honor guard ceremony and a military flag presentation (he’d served in the Second World War). I left the office before Ten and got back to pick Mona up for lunch at One. So I didn’t get back to my desk until about Two.

And once I got back here I just couldn’t get my act together. I hemmed. I hawed. I surfed the internet.

I got a couple of calls returned and sent a couple of emails but that was it. For some reason I just could not get it into gear. My sense of urgency, such as it is, was lost and not to be found again today. The worst part is that I don’t know why. I don’t think it was really the issue of the funeral, I think it was more about the unplanned and somewhat abrupt change in the days plan. Once I was off track there seemed to be no going back. Sure I’m easily distracted and prone to going off on tangents, but this degree of inability to get back on course is extreme.

What happened? Does this ever happen to you?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It happens to me all the time. I am a list kind of person too, but God help me if something messes up my rhythm or it takes me far too long to get it together. I am just not much of a multitasker.

I wish I had a solution for you. I usually just try to do the least odious thing on my list and hope I can get back in the game. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.