I heard this somewhere once and it has stuck with me.  I have been “going to” post a new blog entry for the last two days.  I have even gone so far as to decide on a title and save a draft with no text in it.  I’ve read emails, participated in forums, taken the dog out to chase the ball, read the paper, visited with my brother, updated my calendar and a host of other “important” things that “needed” to be done.  I have finally bit the bullet and here I am.

I find it very interesting when we are not in the mood to do something, even something important, how many things we allow to distract us.  See if you can relate to this series of events:

Today's Goal

I decide I need to take a break from work.  I walk down the hall to the laundry room to do a load of laundry.  I take the laundry out of the dryer and put it on my bed for folding.  This is the goal: to fold the laundry.  While I am thinking about it I transfer what is in the washer to the dryer and put in a new load.

I notice that I am running low on laundry soap and so I pull out my smart phone and enter it into my shopping list.  While I am on my smart phone I decide to check my calendar.  I am so glad that I did because I forgot that I am supposed to be at a virtual meeting with a client in like five minutes.  I rush to my closet and put on a good shirt.  I log back onto my computer and am just in time to join the meeting.

The meeting goes well and takes less time than I had planned.  I decide to take a quick look at my email before going back and folding the clean laundry.  Holy cow!  I got like 100 new emails in the last hour!  I start working my way through the emails.

I get about half-way through and discover a note from a good friend I haven’t talked to in a couple of years and had lost their contact information.  I quickly update the information in my contacts and decide to call her.  It is wonderful to talk to her and we catch up on things promising to keep in touch.

I decide to take another break to fold my laundry but decide I need a bit to eat, it is lunchtime after all.  I fix some lunch and decide to continue going through my email while I’m eating (food and clean laundry don’t mix well after all).  The next thing I know my daughter is coming in the door, home from school.

I’ll take a break and listen about her day while I fold laundry.  But first, she needs a snack.  While she eats her snack we sit at the counter and talk about her day.  I’ve got to get back to work and she has homework so we sit down at the table together.  I’m done with the emails and start updating my business plan and working on the financials.  When she is done with her homework I tell her to do her chores before she goes off to play.  When she is done with her chores she comes back in and tells me she is off to her friends.  I stand up and stretch.  I’m going to go fold the laundry while I take a break.

Walking down the hall I realize I need to use the bathroom.  While in the bathroom I notice that the sink is looking a little gross so I take a few minutes to give it a good cleaning.  While I’m cleaning the sink the phone rings.  It’s my oldest daughter who needs to talk because she is having a bad day at work.  I continue to clean the sink while we talk.  With the sink clean I tell her I’m sorry she is having a rough day, but I really need to get back to work.

Walking back to my “office” at the diningroom table I look at the clock and realize that I need to start dinner.  While I’m making dinner I talk to my mentor on the phone and get some guidance on how to update my financials for the new year.  My daughter comes home about the time I get off the phone and asks (of course), “What’s for dinner?”  I tell her and ask her to set the table for dinner.  While she is doing this I move my “office” into the family room and work more on my financials.  I save the information and close my “office”.  We sit down and eat dinner discussing the day and spending some time together as a family.  I’m glad I talked to my daughter when she got home from school because her grandpa asked her what she did at school today and her comments was, “I don’t remember.”  I reminded her of what she had told me and she began telling her grandpa and included new things she had not told me earlier.  Cleaning up from dinner my daughter remembers she needs to have a red shirt for school tomorrow.  I tell her to go find her red shirt which she does.  It is in the dirty clothes hamper.

I take the clothes out of the dryer and put them on my bed for folding.  I transfer what is in the washer into the dryer and put her red shirt in the washer.  I send her off to shower and get ready for bed and decide to fold the two loads of laundry on my bed.

The phone rings again.  I’d forgotten about the women’s meeting this evening and rushed out the door grateful that I live with my parents.  Two hours later I come home and kiss my sleeping girl.  I thank my parents for putting her to bed.  I’m tired and feeling a little stressed so I decide to sit down and crochet for a while before folding the laundry.  I lose track of time and it is now late and time for bed.

I walk into my room and look at the clean laundry on my bed waiting to be folded.  I remember that my daughters red shirt is in the washer.  I take the clothes out of the dryer and put them on my bed for folding.  I transfer what is in the washer into the dryer so that my daughter will have her red shirt in the morning.  Back in my room there is still laundry on my bed only it seems to have multiplied.  It’s late and I’m tired so I transfer the clean laundry onto the clean hamper in my room and go to bed.

This is a frustrating series of events that seems to repeat itself often.  At the end of each day I ask myself the same question, “Couldn’t I have taken the 10 minutes right then and just gotten it done?”  The answer is always, “Yes.”  Maybe someday I will do just that.