Where has my mind gone?

It’s Wondering Wednesday, and I’m wondering how—after 118 days in a row and 119 blog posts—I got to 10:15 pm last night without remembering that I had to do a post for today!

Kind of frightening.

And I even had a topic all picked out.

It’s going to have to wait, though, because it’s a much more important “wonder” to wonder what has actually happened to my mind.

Here’s what I hope it is.  I hope it’s just that I haven’t spent the time needed to triage all the projects I have going.  Consequently, everything is of equal importance and urgency.  So, I jump around from one thing to another in a less than organized manner.  It’s a kind of situational ADD.

The answer, of course, is to stop rushing around doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  The answer is to slow down, figure out what’s really important–as opposed to what is urgent—and focus on those things.

It’s counter-intuitive.  It feels like I really have to try to make progress on as many fronts as possible.  The truth is the only way to make progress is to concentrate both attention and time in a concerted effort.  It’s not that I can’t accomplish more than one thing in a day.  It’s just that I can’t accomplish more than one thing at a time.

Serial tasking, not multi-tasking.

For that to work, however, I have to have some systems in place.  I have to triage and prioritize.  I have to have lists.  I have to actually look at the lists.

Because all that getting to 10 pm without having done a blog post means, really, is that my systems failed me.  Clearly, this is one of those tasks that needs to have a reminder set, with a loud and recurring alarm.

Because the answer to the question “Where has my mind gone?” is that it hasn’t gone anywhere.  It’s standing in the middle of chaos, bouncing from one thing to another.

I just need to take a deep breath and go back to the basics.

I hope.