Statuses

It’s been a long week already and there is still a long way left to go but the worst of it, the hardest, most stressful and exhausting parts are now over.

Most of our schools will be closed tomorrow and Thursday and that means a lot fewer people and a lot less chaos. I expect to have an easy end to the week working on a few small projects and catching up on data entry, filing, emails, scheduling, and paperwork. I expect shorter days and a chance to enjoy the gorgeous weather on the way. I expect I’ll pretend it’s summer and spend the hours soaking up the sun and daydreaming instead.

This weather is a little concerning though. March is typically one of our snowiest months but looking at the 10 day forecast you’d think we were already into April. We have nothing but sunshine and mid-50s and 60s for the foreseeable future. I’m in heaven but I’m dreading what might turn out to be a rather unbearable summer on the way.

All of my coworkers are freaking out about the Coronavirus. I work for a school district so any rapidly spreading contagions are a serious concern for us. There are now new chemicals to use on the buses to disinfect and there are bottles of hand sanitizer everywhere. It’s a good thing but I can’t help feeling like these are things we should have been doing all along.

A coworker is out with pink eye now. Flu goes around every year. We’ve had a throat and sinus thing going around for weeks. Earlier this winter we had a nasty stomach bug circulating too. Why is everyone just now washing their hands and cleaning surfaces? Why is everyone worried about vaccines and masks? Why are we just now preparing for a pandemic? I’m frustrated equally by the panic now and the lack of care before.

On top of it all I worry over whether I am reacting and preparing in the right way. I am trying to stay calm and rational. I’m CPR and First Aid trained so I have always been mindful about washing my hands and protecting myself for transmittable disease but I have stepped things up. I’m disinfecting more often and paying more attention to how often I am touching my face but that’s it for universal precautions.

In addition, I’m checking myself when I feel the panic rising and I am limiting my access to the news cycle. I advise everyone out there to do the same.

It’s day two and I already feel like time is moving too fast. There’s a lot I’m anxious about and if I had it my way I’d simply avoid it all but these aren’t things I have much of a choice in doing and so the more time passes the more panicked I feel. Before the end of March a lot will have changed for me.

I’m coping by focusing on the day I’m in and only that day. It’s Monday and unlike the last this one is a bit busier, a bit more chaotic, a bit more stressful. I’m still teaching the new employees and every day something new seems to happen that prolongs my process. This is the one big drawback to working on a team. More people to mess it up. More people you have to redirect, remind, and rely on. More people to let you down and to make more work for you. Oh well, I’m paid by the hour and never opposed to an opportunity to make more money.

I wish I had more time for me though. I miss my podcasts. I miss writing. I miss having room to think! Soon, soon…

New month new me, I hope. I’m actually sad to see February go. There was so much I wanted to do that I just couldn’t complete. I’m still working on my “Currently” post but with my energy and focus levels being the same as they were this time last month I doubt I’ll get it done. January’s is still sitting in my drafts folder too.

I want March to be better and with the temperatures increasing and the sunlight sticking around longer I think it will. I want to get better at managing my time. I had stopped checking my calendar and turned off my alarms and reminders. This month it’s all coming back. In addition, I’m using my pocket notebook more. I’ve had so many great ideas this month and I lost almost all of them because I relied too much on my mind alone to remember them.

This month I’m also moving away from using Google tasks for my to-do list and coupling my calendar to a simple .txt file instead. Right now I have one long to do list with rows and rows of overdue and failed items. It’s a pretty depressing place to be. I found this system from Jeff Huang in which you combine your calendar and a text file and create new lists every day with only the items you need to do that day. Anything you don’t get to gets rescheduled in the calendar instead of dying on the list.

This system also combines the to-do list with a logbook. Throughout the day, or at the end if you like, you add things you did along with notes and highlights you want to remember later. This is a crucial aspect I have failed to implement.

Part of me would like this to be an analog system but the truth is I doubt I have the time. Digital has the benefit of being faster and searchable even if it is rather rigid and boring. We’ll see though. Right now I just need to try something.