Good Advice For The Overwhelmed

So far this week I have stripped down the bathroom, scrubbed and painted and reassembled it; cleaned and tidied the garden, cut the grass and weeded; been to a car boot sale; on several long walks with my dogs and a short walk with my husband (back from dropping off the car for a service); hosted an anxious friend; prepared a week’s daily jokes in advance and a couple of filler posts.

I have 277 emails to deal with (down from 337 this morning at nine); all of my kitchen cupboards to rearrange into a better, more compact system; and some shopping for new accessories for the bathroom (most people do that in advance but I spent the last spare money on paint and had to wait for the latest spare money for the accessories).

I’m feeling overwhelmed so I am going to follow the excellent advice my friend Pam always slaps me around with when I’m riding the crazy train:

What is the smallest thing I can do?

Doing a small thing is doable, manageable, possible; it allows me to do one thing, one time.  I can cope with that.

It works like this: you want to book a holiday but it’s a daunting task because you’ve never done such a thing before.  What is the smallest thing you can do?

Answer: Choose the destination.

You want to choose the destination; what is the smallest thing you can do?

Answer: Go to the travel agent and pick up some brochures.

And you carry on like that.

So, I want to reduce my emails from 277 to its standard position of under-100.

What is the smallest thing I can do?

Answer: Write a blog post about it.  

WRONG!  There are no wrong answers, of course, if the activities help to reduce the giant mountain to a tiny molehill…but procrastination tends to have the opposite effect.  I’ll try again.

Answer: Read one cartoon email; then delete it.

Emails are down to 276 but I’m sweating bullets at the enormity of the many tasks before me; what is the smallest thing I can do?

Answer: Take a shower.

See you on the other side.  For goodness’ sake, don’t email me while I’m gone.

I use this illustration from CERN to boast about my friend’s son, who is spending a part of his PhD study time there.  No small achievement.

Joke 776

Old Timers’ Views On Computing

• Memory was something you lost with age
• An application was for employment
• A program was a TV show
• A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
• A cursor used profanity
• A keyboard was a piano
• A web was a spider’s home
• A virus was the flu
• A hard drive was a long trip on the road

From Will & Guy.