"Spare Time"

When I was in school, I tended to have about a gazillion things on the go. Essays, presentations, assignments, however many part-time jobs I was juggling and whatever organizations I had had gotten involved with. Two things happened: I learned the value of lists and I stopped doing my hobbies. Hobbies had to go. There was no time. Hobbies were for the holidays. It took me a year to make a skirt - from the drafting of the pattern to the time I actually put it on and it was good to go.

When I started work, I realised that I had evenings. It was a long time since I had had evenings free. Sometime in grade school, homework enacted a hostile take-over over my free time. I started digging out my old supplies. Sewing was one of the first things to get resurrected. I had lots of free time and there was no need for lists anymore. Lists were for when your brain couldn't cope with everything you had to accomplish and was trying to forget it as quickly as possible.

Within a short space of time, I had finished one dress, started on another, had to mend a shirt by sewing ribbon around it by hand, and signed up for a tailored shirt class and joined a sewing group.

Not realising exactly what else I had going on, I also joined an Ultimate team.

Then my thesis supervisor called me. The end result was that I agreed to help co-author a paper.

Last night at my sewing group, we agreed up on our new challenge for the coming month. One skirt, with three elements.

All of a sudden, I needed lists. I needed a list for what I had to do. I needed a sub-list to list what had to be accomplished with each task. I needed a planner again. I learned many things in school. I learned how to solve an equilibrium model and draw phase diagrams. I learned to read and absorb books quickly, and then rip the author's argument to shreds. I learned how to crank out essays and carry a tonne of books.

But the most important skill I learned was how to panic. I'm good at it. You panic. Then you panic again and then you freak out. You realise that you can not accomplish everything in the time you have to do it. It is not humanly possible. So then you have a total freak out. Then you write a list. And suddenly, it seems almost manageable. Not quite do-able but not worth a total freak out. So you down grade to panic again. You start attacking the list. You cross things off it. Then it hits you that you've finished the least important thing first. Then stress hits, the good kind - the kind that makes you work efficiently and diligently.

Tonight, good stress will kick in. Things will get done. Something will have to give. I'm going to phone in sick. I don't have time for work.