Heaven Fest.  I do that.

Our current office is not opened on Mondays, but I work on  Mondays…and Saturdays…and Sundays, too sometimes.

When I know I have to jump headlong into a long-list Monday working from home, I have a way of dealing with it that makes it a wonderful day.  Sometimes I don’t do this, and then I feel cheated and totally worn out and sort of like a prisoner in my own house.  But when I remember…

The secret?

45:15.  This is the formula.  I work like a maniac for 45 minutes.  Then I do something totally un-work-related for 15.  I actually set the timer for this.

At first, when the task list is long and time-pressure related things roll out endlessly causing my heart to palpitate and my breath to shorten, the timer going off feels like an interruption…like, what? wait…now?  I am just getting my groove.  So, it doesn’t always feel like a blessing.

But, then, I find my pace and get my groove and the timer becomes a reward for me.  I plow with vigor into my 45 minutes of work and when the beep begins, I am set free like a kid on that last day of school and for 15 minutes I can do anything I want without one thought of the tasks at hand.  Sometimes that is cleaning the bathroom or doing a load of laundry.  Today it is weeding and pruning and writing this quick post.  I might even call my mom during one “break” today.

I suppose one could put her feet up, eat some bon-bons and watch a soap opera, but that isn’t my deal.  So even though I am still doing “stuff” it is stuff that makes me happy and makes me feel accomplished and gives my worm-out mind a rest.  It is good.

At the end of 10 hours today, I will have competed my work task list, have an amazing sense of accomplishment and I will have enjoyed a couple of hours of tidying and weeding and fresh air and music and working from home.  The productivity goes up and the breath normalizes.

NOTE:  I have never been able to actually “do” the Flylady thing, but I think I got this idea from an essay she wrote some years ago about how to handle it when what you have to do is a crazy-high mountain of tasks.  Steady as she goes…  :)