One cannot manage too many affairs...

like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.

N.B. For affairs read 'business affairs.' Just thought I'd say.

A rather bizarre Chinese proverb. I assume it's their equivalent of our spinning plates? But I'm left wondering why anyone would want to be submerging a lot of pumpkins.

One cannot manage too many affairs but one is just going to have to because one is lucky enough to have so much work that one's head is spinning.

Not to mention that I do have a life outside of work.

Honestly I do.

Nothing divides one so much as thought.

Oh yes, R.H. Blyth, you have me there, haiku writer, dear departed devotee of Japanese culture.

History of Haiku Volume 1

I leave my heart

to the sasanqua flower

on the day of this journey

Blyth's death poem, left behind when he finally succumbed to a brain tumour in 1964 

 Yesterday, I couldn't concentrate at all. I had so much work to do and a brain like a butterfly on speed.

Rather in the spirit of writing a blog about my poor time-management when I was battling against the clock with work deadlines, I spent time being distracted by looking for a program that might stop me being distracted!

In a typical human paradox I had been feeling I hadn't got the time to look at ways of saving time.

HOWEVER...success! Success in the form of Zen Writer - a free download from a company called Beenokle. (There's a donate button and I will be contributing, it's that good.)

Zen Writer fills your screen - I mean your ENTIRE screen - with a soothing picture...

...no icons, no intrusive menus, no toolbars, no little thingies popping up to alert you to a new message or e-mail. Just your writing when you produce it. It comes with the option of calming New Age music on a loop.

It DID make a difference. I wrote a long article on zonal nursing (don't ask!) almost in one go and I didn't end up with a crashing headache either.

I know I'm fickle. I know I seize on new ideas then after a while they fizzle out of existence.

If I let this happen with Zen Writer - I'm more of an idiot than I thought.

What comes first, the compass or the clock?

"Before one can truly manage time (the clock), it is important to know where you are going, what your priorities and goals are, in which direction you are headed (the compass).

Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Rather than always focusing on what's urgent, learn to focus on what is really important."

(Who said that? Nobody knows.)

Then there's another quote, this time from Donald Rumsfeld. “Control your time. If you're working off your in-box, you're working off the priorities of others."

Mea culpa, Donald. I'm trying to get my head round the dilemma, because I think that this is the lot of a busy copy-writer. Your client needs something done. Quickly. You do it. Quickly. You drop other things with longer deadlines.You play catch up.

 What I have done so far today:

• Got up
• Went to yard to feed and turn out/bring in the horses
• Came home
• Spent half an hour, when I could have been working, writing a blog about time management

Sometimes I wonder about myself.