Time Management - Aarsen

Me and time, we don't always see eye to eye. I tend to think of time as elastic, bendable to my will. Often, on my way out the door for an appointment, I am convinced that if I wish it, I can squeeze in a quick toss of some clothes into the washing machine, perhaps a hasty phone call and maybe scribble out a quick thank you card for my friend and still get out the door on time. Then as I am flying down the road to my appointment, I wonder why I am late. I am thankful that I live out in the country and that I have a 20 mile drive over highways to make up for time wasted. I know this is no way to live and each year one of my resolutions is to allow for enough time. It still surprises me that a procrastinator like myself has managed to meet the multitude of deadlines associated with each book. The initial deadline of delivery, the deadline of broad edits, the deadline of line edits, the deadline of galley edits, the deadline of cover copy, the deadline of the next proposal and so on and so forth. In spite of the discipline of these many deadlines, I still struggle with the relentless tick of the clock, the flip of the calendar page. I have listened to time management seminars, bought time management tools, carry a day-timer with me everywhere I go and I still have to deal with the results of procrastination. I don't suppose that will ever completely disappear out of my life. I still have a tendency to see time as my friend. It isn't. It is my enemy. And today, as I look at my day-timer I realize that my relentless optimism vis a vis time is still a struggle. I am 40 pages behind on my current project. And I don't have a twenty mile stretch of road I can speed down to make up for it. I do, however, have weekends and evenings. As long as I don't try to squeeze in too many loads of laundry, phone calls and thank you cards, I might catch up.