Things I’m Not Doing

This is my sad flowerbed in front of my house. It is messy with tall weeds that have gone to seed, flowering plants in sore need of being cut back, and dry patches where the plants didn’t get enough water and have simply died. Between Planet Mercenary fulfillment and the August travel I have done no gardening this year. For a time in early summer a pair of my kids were gardening once per week, but that fell apart in July.

The outside of my house is not the only thing to suffer from neglect. Everywhere I look there are maintenance and cleaning tasks which haven’t been done. This is because I’ve been choosing to do other things with my time. I’ve chosen to fulfill promises to Kickstarter backers. I’ve chosen to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip. I’ve chosen to use my non-working time on relaxation rather than on housework. Over all I think I’ve made the right time management choices, but whether or not they were correct I’m surrounded by the consequences of them.

I’m hoping to have all of the Planet Mercenary Kickstarter fulfillment complete by the end of September. We’re launching a new Kickstarter next week because work doesn’t stop and money must be earned to pay bills. However we’re being careful to structure this new one so that it won’t completely take over all of my creative time. And we plan to have it completely fulfilled by the end of February, so it is time-limited in a way that Planet Mercenary wasn’t. This means that in October I’m going to have space in my schedule and I can decided what to do with it.

Some of that space is already spoken for. I’m partially homeschooling one of my kids. I was last year as well, but this year I’m giving the process more focused attention. The most important thing this kid can learn is how to make himself do stuff that he doesn’t want to do. So I’m providing the framework inside which he can learn that. Intellectually, he’s totally on board and understands what I’m doing. Actually doing the hard things…is different. So he gets a regularly scheduled slice of my full attention.

A portion of that time will go toward household tasks. I hope. The truth is that I’m likely to find another big creative project to dive into. I’m also likely to drift for a bit because I’m now going on ten solid months of massive project push. My brain is tired.

No matter how I choose to spend my time, It is always good to remember that everything I choose to do is at the expense of some other thing I could also do. This is why I must occasionally step back and make sure that my daily usage of time matches my long-term priorities.