{"id":179,"date":"2012-02-11T19:05:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T03:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calirose.com\/blog\/?p=179"},"modified":"2012-02-11T19:05:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T03:05:00","slug":"twenty-five-minutes-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/twenty-five-minutes-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Twenty Five Minutes at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Apparently \u201cdelegating\u201d is not something we jump through hoops to do.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for us to admit the obvious, that\u00a0we can\u2019t do it all.\u00a0 Then again, letting go with clenched fists is not a happy picture either.<\/p>\n

But since I don\u2019t have a \u201cpersonal assistant\u201d because\u00a0I am\u00a0the personal assistant, there is a mountain of stuff that I, and I alone, have to do.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start with my desk\u2014the papers, the projects, the files, the post-it reminders, the computer…\u00a0 Now that\u2019s the land of \u201cain\u2019t no delegating here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long ago an interesting time-and-grief-saving strategy whooshed into my life.\u00a0 Apparently this is what some people, smart people do to tackle the myriad of tasks before them, without getting all burned out and exhausted.\u00a0 What is it?\u00a0 Do one thing for twenty-five minutes.\u00a0 No more, no less, no cheating.<\/p>\n

So on a day that is especially packed with disparate tasks, I decide to give it a try.\u00a0 I set the oven timer for 25 minutes and get to work focusing on one thing.\u00a0 Email.\u00a0 When it dings, I take a little break, reset the timer and move onto the next task, gathering the receipts for our taxes.\u00a0 Ding.\u00a0 Practice the ukulele.\u00a0 Ding.\u00a0 More email.\u00a0 Ding.\u00a0 Marinate the chicken and make a salad.\u00a0 Ding.\u00a0 Return phone calls.\u00a0 Ding.<\/p>\n

This is proceeding especially well as I thunder through the piles of stuff on my desk.\u00a0 I am totally amped and energized.\u00a0 I pay all the bills and it is actually fun because I only have to \u201cdo it\u201d for twenty-five minutes.\u00a0 Not\u00a0forever.<\/p>\n

Until I glance at our little \u201cout box\u201d next to the front door where I swear I left the clutch of envelopes to be mailed.\u00a0 But they aren\u2019t there.\u00a0 Where did they go?\u00a0 Did they grow legs and run away?\u00a0 I try to blame my husband.\u00a0 But he has just walked in, so that doesn\u2019t fly.\u00a0 Suddenly my bones go glacier.\u00a0 Could I have recycled the bills?<\/p>\n

You see, it is during one of my \u201cbreaks\u201d in between those 25-minute work sprints that I haul the basket of recycled papers downstairs.\u00a0 I must have stuffed the bills in with the rest of the frayed and shredded stuff, maybe because I WASN\u2019T PAYING ATTENTION?\u00a0 One more time my mind is doing one thing and my body is doing something else.\u00a0 Suffice it to say, I have to dumpster dive to retrieve the bills.\u00a0\u00a0That\u00a0takes twenty-five minutes.<\/p>\n

As they say, life is a mystery to be lived, not solved.\u00a0 No \u201cowner\u2019s manual\u201d here.\u00a0 It\u2019s a wonder, a miracle that all this–the stuff that makes sense, the stuff that doesn\u2019t–seems to come out of nowhere.\u00a0 The whole wonderful mess of life.\u00a0 Ours to enjoy until it disappears again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently \u201cdelegating\u201d is not something we jump through hoops to do.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for us to admit the obvious, that\u00a0we can\u2019t do it all.\u00a0 Then again, letting go with clenched fists is not a happy picture either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentry","tag-delegating"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"}],"post_tag":[{"value":30,"label":"delegating"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":138,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":138,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":30,"name":"delegating","slug":"delegating","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":30,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}