One of my great peeves has to do with people who consistently overbook their lives with somewhere between 1.25 - 3.0 times the amount of things that they actually have time for. (HINT: This never works… And have you noticed you alienate people because they can’t depend on you?)
Unsurprisingly then, I tend toward the other end of the spectrum - the one made popular by Montgomery Scott: *Hmmmm, if I’m lucky, it’s a five minute job, but it could also take as much as a couple of hours*… “Captain, that will take me at least half a day to fix!”
With that in mind, on to our story...
I had to schedule A Big Project at home.
One that required respirators, safety goggles, kneepads, and Tyvek coveralls.
I did my homework - I read up on instructions for The Big Project, I studied all the estimated times available… and doubled them. I factored in the difficulty of the physical labor required, and allowed for the fact that I am no spring chicken. I erred on the side of caution in all possible estimates, quadrupling the average times given, and finally, settled on 2 days as the optimum amount of time that would allow me to Finish The Project.
Day One arrived.
I suited up, donned all the safety equipment, and sallied forth confidently. Only to discover that, not only was the task FAR more physically taxing than I’d anticipated but also, wearing safety goggles and breathing like Darth Vadar brings out my inner claustrophobic. At the end of two hours, my neck was completely knotted, my back was screaming at me, and my arms were quivering… AND, I’d had two panic attacks. I managed to control one, but the other got away from me, causing me to break land speed records as I sprinted for the fresh air of outdoors.
Yet I wasn’t even close to halfway done.
But that didn’t matter. I’d completely had it, mentally and physically. I hurt, had a roaring headache, and was thoroughly nauseated. I threw in the towel without a second thought and spent the rest of the day trying to lose the headache and eating plain rice to settle my stomach.
Day Two was… well, an improvement, I guess. I still didn’t completely finish, but I did at least get to a satisfactory breaking point before I needed to stop. (As opposed to just dropping the tools where they lay and lurching out of the room.) I also dodged any further panic attacks, altho’ I still had to battle my safety goggles. (They kept fogging up so badly that I actually had to stop twice to pour water out of them. Seriously, there was so much sloshing about that it really wouldn’t have surprised me to see goldfish!)
Even with the psychological improvements however, I still had to quit after two hours, while my neck and back were still speaking to me. There was at least another 2-4 hours of work to be done but I could not see myself safely continuing. So I cleaned things up and shut the door behind me, with a promise to come back soon.
The worst part is done and I’m glad of that. And yes, it was my choice not to push for a couple more hours and then pay for it for the next five days. But despite all that, I’m still very disappointed in myself - for not staying on schedule, for not finishing, for being a wimp.
Because altho' I joke about being Weenie Girl, that's not really the way I like to think of myself.
My preferred imagining runs more along the line of this:
