This post might get a little emo, so I apologize in advance.
I feel like I have so much on my plate right now, and yet when I look back at what I’ve accomplished each day, I wonder if I couldn’t have been more productive. I’m moving out of my apartment on the 21st, so that’s the deadline for pretty much everything, and here’s what I’ve got to do before then:
- Run through the copy edits for Desert Stars and rewrite the epilogue.
- Get the cover art and publish Desert Stars.
- Write the epilogue for Journey to Jordan and publish it.
- Finish Star Wanderers and submit to Writers of the Future.
- Do a guest post for Slava Heretz.
- Finish the application for the TLG program.
- Get rid of all my remaining books.
- Figure out electronic W2 and other forms for taxes (before leaving in January).
- Write up the “About My Books” page on blog.
- Do a couple of recap posts on the travel blog.
- Pack and ship my desktop computer.
- Pack all my remaining stuff.
- Get post office to forward all mail to home address.
- Clean apartment for move-out inspection.
- Find suitable traveler’s insurance.
- Go clothes shopping.
- Half a dozen other things that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.
In other words, this is not the time to be playing minecraft.
And yet, taken individually, most of these tasks are not all that difficult. A lot of them are just mindless chores associated with moving, and the other ones, while requiring hard work, are pretty straightforward. So am I really swamped, or am I just disorganized and lazy?
This is something I’ve struggled with since graduating last year. When I was in school, I was constantly busy, but I was also constantly producing. Even though my writing suffered a bit when I was swamped, I still found time to write three novels (Ashes of the Starry Sea, Genesis Earth, and Bringing Stella Home) and hold down a student job. For the last year, I haven’t had any school and most of the time I haven’t had a job, and yet my productivity doesn’t seem to have improved.
Part of it has to do with structuring time and organizing myself. In the past year, I’ve learned that a routine isn’t something you should hang onto doggedly, but something you need to constantly reinvent. And yet, when I’m staying up until 2am-3am and not getting up until 8am-9am, I can’t help but feel that something’s off. The whole moving limbo thing certainly doesn’t help, but hey, the work’s still got to be done.
Maybe it’s just deer in the headlights syndrome. I’ll try making a checklist of everything I want to accomplish in the next two weeks and go for it. In the meantime, I’m going to get out of this apartment and take a walk, because if I don’t, I’m going to go insane.
Also, as a token of gratitude for putting up with my babbling, here’s something cool I made the other day:
See you around!
