Things should be easy and then all of a sudden they aren't.
It’s one of those extremely annoying things that derails my to do list REGULARLY. Today I’m going to do x, y, and z. I am prepared. Except the computer needed to update, so that slowed task x way down. Then, I had to make a phone call for y, and it turned out that the paperwork, which had me calling one office, actually meant that I needed to call another office FIRST, and THAT office was on their lunch hour. And now z is giving me problems too, and now I’m out of time and I’VE ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING HOW DID THAT HAPPEN??
Excuse me. Lost my mind for a minute. Because I like to think I’m a pretty organized and prepared person, and I love list making, and when my list doesn’t cooperate, I get pretty irritated.
The other night, I was at the library, working in their computer. Why do I work there? Because it’s forced quiet, and since it’s a public computer, it doesn’t have things that are there solely to distract me, like email pop ups, or games, or texts. I don’t get distracted by buying coffee. And I go when I have a finite amount of time, like when the girls are in dance. It’s worked out well.
Except this time, after writing FIVE full articles, the library system rebooted. And here’s the kicker. I don’t like dealing with a flash drive because I work on an iPad a lot of the time. And I don’t like Google Docs because I’m stubborn. So I wrote in word and saved to the desktop, and then I email everything to myself. So can you picture what happened when the system rebooted? Public computers wipe the desktop. So all my files, which I DID save, were gone. And then, and THEN, I had to get a lecture from everyone I know about saving your work. Two hours, totally wasted.
Simple things on your to-do list, like getting a car seat check when you’re pregnant (simple, right?) or picking up a prescription, can get totally derailed. And suddenly, your to-do list is a flop and you feel like a failure. And plenty of people will give you all sorts of advice that doesn’t help when it’s already “done” (looking at you, librarian).
Sometimes it just isn’t easy. And when those days come, it’s best just to take a breath, rewrite your list with what you know now, and try again.