approach the task at hand with focus and sustained attention

Focus and sustained attention is not so difficult when you have something you want to focus on and pay attention to. Damn it! Another truism.

Tomorrow I have a telephone appointment with my employer for whom I am doing research. Or rather, for whom I am supposed to be doing research. Luckily I had a meeting today I can tell her about but otherwise I have pathetically little to show for the months she has been paying me one day a week. Argh. Tomorrow might actually be a good day for focus and sustained attention…
(The following lists may expand during the day.)

• Check that website in the UK and gather information. Interesting. I wouldn’t mind working there.
• Check out the internet further for what I can find, on both issues. Interesting stuff but hard to make out what’s important and what’s not. (Isn’t it always?).
• Contact any interesting leads from this search as well as earlier searches
• Call R about progress… (eeek!). This will be tomorrow instead (phew!), in the mean time I have worked a bit further and sent an e-mail to my partner in crime..
• Call the contact I got today to make an appointment. Done!
• Actually read the literature I got… :p
• Put everything into the folder where it is supposed to be

• Call the hairdresser for an appointment next week Next Wednesday
• Laundry: do it and fold it
• Go through underwear drawer and throw out old and/or useless stuff (this is something that has been irking me for weeks! now that I have washed all my bras, I can’t get them into the drawer anymore, this is stupid)
• Pay the bills
• Make an itinerary proposal for my parents for when we are in Durango, call them to see if I can come by this evening to fill in the visa application and “I will not attempt to murder your president nor will I commit genocide” style of documentation on the internet for when we travel next week
• Find the ‘travel wallet’ that still has dollars and the annual pass for national parks in it

cleaning the kitchen!
washing my bras!

- Close e-mail (all) and 43
- Ignore piles on desk and concentrate on the one file I need
- Finish the evaluation and make the blueprint that comes out of it, send it to J with a smile
- Work on sending that mail to the mailing list
- Call people I need, despite massive phone shy attacking my system

Everything is so heavy.

I’ve been bustling round, skittish, all morning. Now is a good time to remember this goal. Multi-tasking is doing my head in. My thoughts are whirling around, pirouetting and making me dizzy.

1. Breathe. Ten long, deep ones.
2. Close down this window, put my mobile in the farthest corner of my desk possible.
3. One hour, no distractions. My challenge: to finish the file I’m working on and send my opinion to my manager.

Go.

edit
Done! It feels spectacular to knock off a huge and convoluted issue like that.

I read it in a magazine somewhere, an article from someone who had done this by stating very clearly to himself whenever he was doing something “I am doing this and this now” and did not let other things distract him. Like “I am making tea now” without thinking of a 1000 other things at the same time and putting the tea making on automatic. This goes for small things like making tea or brushing teeth or simply waiting in line, to bigger things like workstuffs (reports, etc.) I’m going to try this. (Except for the saying it out loud. That is a bit weird.)

Will make tasks list and will use egg timer to keep myself in line.

^Help!

Picking up my spare bike from the station so that I can put the lock on my new (second-hand) bike so that I can use it tomorrow to get to the station…

(Must finish dinner first though.)

MAN I’m getting distracted all over the place! Focus… focus…

1. Close e-mail and 43 things
2. (Hah, no need to switch off phone because I accidentally left it at work where I won’t be until tomorrow.)
3. Make a list of things to do today
4. Check the recipe for tonight’s tajine, for grocery list
5. Gather stuff for work outside the house (going to Gary’s this afternoon)
6. Go to the hairdresser
7. Go to Gary’s, type out the brainstorm session, mail it
8. Type out new episode of Japan Diaries
9. Groceries
10. Come home, work on case studies collection
11. Do things from the 10-day challenge

^{Sorry Clu, probably the bookcrossing will be another day. But you’ll be away anyway so I figured I’d send it on Saturday and it’ll still be there when you get home. :)}

Step two: close 43things.
Step three: put on ipod with Mozart to shut out noises from co-workers.
Step four: don’t leave chair (for anything but making tea) until I’m done.

Task: editing and adding to the project plan for the orchestra.