A day or so ago, I read one of those "know-it-all" blogs that advised me to get rid of all but three of my top priorities. No one can handle more than three things at once, the writer advised. You just end up dropping the ball on everything. So life is easier if you just pick three and ignore the rest. Finish a task and you can move something into its place, but never, ever, work on more than three things at once.
OK, I thought. It sounds logical. But what has to go? I looked at the list I had already made in my Task File on my Yahoo page. Oops! Four items! Which one of these do I throw out?
- Keep the half-price promotion on THE ROAD TO FROGMORE moving with regular related postings.
- Finish the last three chapters of DAMNED YANKEE. Proofread it and send it off to the editor while I work on the trailer.
- Handle the technicalities of re-claiming the electronic publishing rights to A SCRATCH WITH THE REBELS and deal with Kindle on how to manage replacing the old publisher item with a new file from Katzenhaus Books.
- Find the perfect narrator for BEYOND ALL PRICE, and work through the steps to issue it as an audio book.
I can't slight any one of those. They are like my children. Then there is another list -- the life tasks that face me every day.
- Learn to walk again. I'm navigating around he house pretty well by now, but I still move like a penguin.
- Force myself to wade through the stack of file folders on my desk that contain the accounting materials for our 2013 Income Tax filing. The accountant wants it by the end of the month.
- Get my secretarial duties for the Germantown Lions Club straightened out -- two months of minutes to be reconstructed, awards to be calculated, records filed, etc.
- Start work on my job as chair of the Nominating Committee for MidSouth Lions Sight and Hearing Service,so that the March meeting can run smoothly.
- Handle all registration details for the state-wide Lions Convention in April.
That's a group of five, you'll notice. Apparently there's just one answer: construct a new group of three. So here's my new juggling list:
- Work on publications
- Take care of all promised other duties.
- Eat chocolate.
There! Now wasn't that easy?
