![\"Hoffman\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Hoffman-150x150.jpg?resize=150%2C150\")
<\/a>March 2013) I have a confession to make:\u00a0 I waste a lot of time.\u00a0 And the busier I am, and the older I get, it seems the more time I waste.<\/p>\nI did some math.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say I manage to while away in unproductive stupor an average of 3 hours a day.\u00a0 Not counting the hours between midnight and 6 a.m., that\u2019s 1,095 hours, or 91.25 days, or a little over 3 months a year.\u00a0 Assuming I have about 25 more years on earth, that amounts to 76 months, or 6.3 years of my remaining life that I am willingly abdicating to nothingness.\u00a0 If instead I devoted those 3 hours a day to a single project, in those same 25 years, I could accomplish 27,375 goals.<\/p>\n
Mindboggling, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
There was a time when I made \u201cto do\u201d lists.\u00a0 Early on, these lists were fun.\u00a0 They gave me a focus on what needed to be done in a day, or a weekend, or some longer period of time.\u00a0 Crossing off each item as it was finished was a satisfying reward.\u00a0 Somewhere along the way, however, I abandoned the list strategy when my lists became instruments of torture rather than tools of encouragement.\u00a0 The lists grew in length; fewer and fewer items got crossed off.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been years since I made such a list, but it exists, nevertheless, in my head.\u00a0 It taunts me as I look out the kitchen window into the back yard, when I walk from one room to the next in my house, when I go down to the basement or into the garage.\u00a0 Hundreds of projects and tasks undone, ignored, stepped over, moved from one inconvenient place to a slightly less inconvenient place, which in the moment seems justifiable and simpler than mustering the energy to do whatever it is that needs doing.<\/p>\n
I greatly admire people with discipline.\u00a0 I want some, but I don\u2019t know how to get it.\u00a0 I do very little that can be categorized by any sane person as \u201croutine.\u201d\u00a0 Other people do laundry on Tuesdays, go grocery shopping on Saturday, clean the house every Friday, bake on Sunday afternoons, and water the house plants every other Thursday.<\/p>\n
I just can\u2019t do that.\u00a0 My approach is much more free-spirited:\u00a0 stuff happens when the muse hits.\u00a0 Or when some other outside influence leaves me no choice.\u00a0 I\u2019ve actually been known to invite friends to dinner just so I have a compelling reason to dust and run the vacuum cleaner.<\/p>\n
As a result, contrary to my public persona, very few people would ever guess that I\u2019m a closet sloth.\u00a0 All the reasons that ordinarily work in terms of motivating people to adopt sensible habits and routines simply have no effect on me.\u00a0 The \u201ca place for everything and everything in its place\u201d mantra is a pipe dream.\u00a0 I believe in it, I want it to be, but it eludes me.<\/p>\n
And I am my own worst enabler.\u00a0 Lately, in the midst of the cold and grey of lingering winter, my justification for doing nothing is that I\u2019m waiting for warmer weather and longer days, for that first wondrous day of Spring when I can open the windows, turn up the music, and fly around in a frenzy of cleaning and organizing and cooking and baking and \u2026 whatever.\u00a0 I can feel that elusive energy as I think about it and write about it, desperately waiting for it to arrive, like a junkie can feel the lure of the needle.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, every time I walk past a pile of unfiled papers or catch a glimpse of windows that badly need to be washed or navigate through the insanity of my basement, little voices start harping at me:\u00a0 not now, not enough time, maybe this weekend, or perhaps later when it\u2019s not so cold.\u00a0 Later, later, always later; anything but now.<\/p>\n
Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve been asking myself lately, am I insane?\u00a0 Or just lazy?\u00a0 Or perhaps I\u2019m just going with the flow, allowing the divine forces of the universe to guide my path?\u00a0 Yeah, right.<\/p>\n
When I ran the numbers before I began writing this piece, I have to tell you, they got to me.\u00a0 6.3 years, 27, 375 goals. Something definitely has got to change.\u00a0 I\u2019ll start working on that tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Chris Hoffman lives in the village of Sherburne in her 150+ year-old house where she caters to the demands of her four cats, attempts to grow heirloom tomatoes and herbs and reads voraciously. She passionately pursues various avenues with like-minded friends to preserve and protect a sustainable rural lifestyle for everyone in Central New York.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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Think Local By Chris Hoffman (Sherburne, NY – March 2013) I have a confession to make:\u00a0 I waste a lot of time.\u00a0 And the busier I am, and the older I get, it seems the more time I waste. I did some math.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say I manage to while away in unproductive stupor an average […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4153,19005,23798],"class_list":["post-44087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chris-hoffman","tag-sherburne-ny-news","tag-think-local"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s43meu-tomorrow","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Hoffman\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Hoffman-e1356564447858.jpg\")
<\/a>March 2013) I have a confession to make:\u00a0 I waste a lot of time.\u00a0 And the busier I am, and the older I get, it seems the more time I waste.<\/p>\n