For the past month, I’ve been exceedingly busy. Or so it seems anyway. Work has been full, not overly so, but enough that I’m mentally drained by the time I get home. Then there’s daily stuff like meals and cleaning that need to be done. Add to all that an abundance of activities for everyone in my family and it seems like there’s just not enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished. Never mind working on other projects (like generating wealth).

However, over the past week, I’ve been trying to look a little closer at my busyness and I’ve discovered that along with increased activities, my efficiency has dropped. What I mean by that is I spend a lot of time doing inconsequential stuff instead of activities with high value. Now part of my problem seems to centre around the large volume of interruptions when I’m at home. At first I thought maybe I’m just making excuses but I kept a bit of a log and discovered that I average about 6 minutes between interruptions with the longest uninterrupted stretch being about an hour. Unfortunately, that hour is right before bed and by that time I’m mentally exhausted. As if this wasn’t all bad enough, I’ve been sick for the past week with a nagging cough. It’s subsiding now, but I haven’t been sleeping well.

Anyway, my point is that it’s easy to succumb to the pressures of daily life. Weeks, months and even years can pass by while you “live your life” without really accomplishing anything. So, the question is, what can you do about this? At this point, I don’t have an answer. What I do have is some thoughts.

Make a game plan: If goals are your thing, then set some goals; both short and long term. For myself, goals have never really worked so instead, I’m trying to define what I want my life to look like. A set of guiding principles if you will. Either one requires discipline so I think it would be better to have a mix of big and small targets so you can have some small successes to keep you on track while still having the prize to keep your eye on.

Schedule “me” time: It may seem selfish, but blocking out a chunk of time for yourself may help you accomplish things. Right now, various members of my family have activities Monday to Thursday nights and then weekends at various times. As much as I would prefer to stay home to work on my activities that doesn’t seem to be working so I may need to actually leave the house during my “me” time. For those who have a specific work area in your residence, it may be enough to close the door and put a “do not disturb” sign up. Maybe I need to get a door on my office…

Optimize routine activities: I have this feeling that daily chores could be a lot easier if I had a better schedule for doing them. Right now, I just sort of do things when they catch my attention. One good area for optimization is meals. Having a meal plan for the week really helps. I used to plan out the week’s meals and go buy all the ingredients on Sunday, but with all the activities both at work and at home, there are days where we just don’t have enough time to prepare even a quick meal. Still, that’s one area where improvement would help. Another is daily/weekly chores such as dishes and laundry. Both my wife and I just seem to take care of these things whenever we feel like. I think having a regular schedule where I make lunches and do dishes right after the kids are put to bed would help. I’ve used both the meal plan and the daily schedule and they work well but it takes discipline to do it consistently.

Mix work and play: Generating wealth in and of itself isn’t very fun. I suppose this ties in with making a game plan. When determining your goals/principles, you need to ensure that you’ll enjoy whatever it is you plan to do. Sure, there’s going to be hard work. Anything worth having requires work, but find a way to add some fun to it. Even if its something simple like trying to optimize dish placement in the drying rack (yes, I do this, and yes, its kind of weird). With kids, you could do something like a quick game of laundry basketball where you see who can get the most points sinking their clothes in the laundry basket.

Change your attitude: Being grumpy or cranky just doesn’t help. Try and be happy no matter what’s going on. After a long day, the last thing you want to do is cook and clean, but it has to be done anyway so instead of grumping about it, just accept it and get to it. Play some good music in the background, that usually helps. Think about the good things in your life. Do whatever it takes to be in your happy place. This alone will make it all easier.

I’m sure there’s other things that can help overcome the daily grind. I believe the first step is recognizing that you’ve fallen victim to it. Now I’m going to put action to these thoughts and see if I can’t break the shackles of this dull routine I’ve succumbed to.

- Dave