Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Eating an Elephant, Part 2

Yesterday on Outside the Box, I whined and lamented (again... yeah, I'm sick of me, too) and finished up the post with what has become my new favorite pep phrase - I'm eating the elephant.

If you're not familiar with the phrase, it's an old joke - how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time.

I'm using that to light a fire under my ass and get stuff done.  Eating an elephant seems like an insurmountable task, but if you eat it one bite at a time, it can be done.  So, that's what I'm doing.

Lemme 'splain. 

I have let things go - both personally and professionally - for a long enough time that catching up feels like an insurmountable task.  So, I'm eating the elephants one bite at a time until the tasks are tackled.

Elephant #1 is obviously the writing/editing thing.  I got back on that over the weekend and I'm making progress.

Elephant #2 is household chores.  Oh, the house isn't a shambles or anything.  All the regular stuff is getting done - dishes, vacuuming, etc.  It's the bigger stuff that I've let slide, like washing the floors and deep dusting (which means actually moving knick-knacks) and scrubbing the counters (you know, when you actually take everything off of them and don't just wipe in front of everything).  Scrubbing the bathroom.  And weeding.  Ugh, let's not think about the weeding yet today.

Anyway, with this new elephant eating idea in mind, I'm actually getting shit done for a change.  Things are getting cleaned, edits are getting input.

Now, to keep eating these elephants until the plates are clean.  Then maybe the weight of everything won't keep squashing me into the floor.

What elephants are you dealing with?

2 comments:

  1. You got this! One bite at a time! I have the elephants you do. I need to deep stuff (sort and toss and clean) on the house. I/we don't hoard--per se--we just let stuff stack up. On the writing side, my personal deadline is dead and gone and the official one looms like the Grim Reaper himself. After reading your post yesterday, I did take a bit and got a little over 1K written before the blahs set in and RL intervened. Sadly, 1K a day ain't gonna cut it but every baby step forward opens up opportunity for a giant step. I need to stop taking bites and start gorging, but for now, one bite at a time.

    Thanks for the inspiration! It truly helps to know I'm not alone in this boat, though it sucks to be here and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. :/

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  2. Yay for writing/editing!

    Um, I'm not even *thinking* about deep cleaning. (Looks shifty-eyed around house. I'm *not* a hoarder!)

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