The lovely Sha in L.A. tagged me to take part in the L.A. Meme that’s been going around. But while I’ve been meaning to fill that out for a couple days, it’ll have to be later tonight – this morning, I have something else to write about.
I was also tagged last night for a different purpose – to help work on the campaign for Marcy Winograd. I put my name down to – surprise! – run her blog a couple weeks ago, when I found myself at a potluck with a few of the CODEPINK girls, celebrating the launch of her campaign. Marcy is running for Congress in my district, and since I’ve been looking for a way to make a difference in the 2006 elections, this may well be it.
So now, Jillian’s List of Projects, in order of priority, runs to:
And then there’s the temporary/upcoming stuff:
And overlay this with the Diet And Exercise I’m Not Doing, and the Socializing I Do Constantly (because I’m one of the Unofficial Social Coordinators in my group of friends, which is something I’m good at) and you have, well, a poorly prioritized mess. Because I get home, and I’m so overwhelmed by stuff that nothing gets done. And that has to change. Because if I want to do this much, then I need to figure out what tasks to tackle first, and actually sit down and focus and get them done, one by one, instead of, say, collapsing in front of the TV and telling myself I’ll get to those tasks later, and then falling asleep before they get done.
I’m working on redefining my mindset this week, and re-blocking my schedule, and training myself to sit down and accomplish things in a scheduled time. Because my work is suffering, at my real job, for everything else – I’ll write entries for blogging.la on the job, or track anti-war stories through Bloglines, and the slacking has caused me to drop some things at my full time job. And being distracted by writing personal blog entries, or working on CODEPINK projects has kept me from working on poker freelance work at home, and I need that income to pay for Europe next month.
It’s hard for me to admit I’m not Supergirl. I’m supposed to be – I know, I know, that’s the problem. My mother got her PhD while working full time and rebuilding the house and raising a family. My sister is one of the brightest, most dedicated and amazing people I know. Part of the reason I take on so much is because I feel like I have to do this much, that it would be a waste of my IQ, my talent and my heart to do any less. But there’s so much happening, and I’m not focused, or driven, on anything – it has to change, and it has to change soon.
Therefore, I will probably shift some of the focus on this blog over to how I’m managing my time and my focus, and transfer the “this is what happened this week in Los Angeles” entries over to blogging.la. I think those are the two subjects I need to write about the most, right now. Writing helps me crystallize my thoughts into something coherent, and make sense of things. It’s like talking things through to another person. Writing about L.A. for an audience who didn’t live here (mostly, the Vancouver crew) and having to explain why, despite being from BC, I loved it here so much, helped me understand the city. And now, writing about everything I do may help me understand why I’m not necessarily getting to everything I’ve committed to, even if those committments are only to myself.
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