Frazzled

I have now lost the ability to keep up with the blog. And for that I do apologize. There are many of you — friends, family, loyal readers of the blog — that come by on a regular basis and you have probably noticed that there has been a little bit of a drop in regular posting. Why is that?

My work life is really busy these days. A good busy but it does have an impact on extracurricular activities largely because I use time after work, whatever that means these days, to finish things that I could not get done during work. And this from a guy who has focused on personal productivity for many years.

Someone asked me what I had planned for the week-end. Let’s see.

1. Manage the household finances

Our personal finances are managed to the penny. Every week I download all of our financial transactions, categorize them and update a comprehensive planning spreadsheet tracking actual versus planned spending. I also mark to market my investment portfolio and Lorraine and I review spending year-to-date and discuss upcoming expenditures, financial goals and objectives and any other financial planning items. For the most part, we get this done inside of an hour.

2. File the income taxes

I have been very fortunate with my personal finances particularly in the area of investing. But that success carries with it a high degree of complexity and nowhere does that become more evident than income tax season. Although I have been chipping away at this over the past several weeks, I have to finish it before the end of April. Roughly five hours of work left.

3. Prepare a strategy document

I have a meeting on Tuesday evening where I need to provide a fairly robust discussion document outlining vision, strategy, current state and target state. I have not yet started said document. Eight hours.

4. Practice

I am playing at an event on Thursday evening. I have rehearsals on Wednesday evening. I have a strategy presentation on Tuesday evening. I have to pull charts and conduct personal practice for this event. Three hours.

5. Recording

I am helping to produce a recording project with my band. We are in the early stages of recording. For the most part we have finished pre-production work. I have to prepare guide tracks, write up charts and coordinate scheduling for the first stage of recording. Six hours.

6. Home Theatre

I know. It is a bit crazy from a timing perspective. But the upstairs home theatre environment was driving me over the edge. We have a very large great room on the main level of our home. When it was built, the ceiling was wired with 7 speakers with seemingly little consideration given to how it might sound in everyday life. In a word? Awful. The new speakers came in yesterday. Time to install and calibrate: five hours. I also have to prep the audio cabinet as I have a team coming in Monday to do some wiring and routing for the video panel. When the house was built, the panel access was built around component video. I am changing that over to HDMI for a number of reasons. Time to prep the audio cabinet: two hours. When I originally ordered the equipment, I did not think much about the collateral effect on my personal time. Oops.

7. Ride

Maybe it is a good thing it is such a murky day today. I won’t be riding outside today but hopefully tomorrow. All in it takes about three hours for a ride.

So, somewhere in excess of thirty hours of work this week-end. And that does not include finishing the work that I could not get done at work last week. Or blogging. But I will get back to regular posting. I just have to get a few things done first.