[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPbqHhYxv5w&w=480&h=295]

Time will tell, but last week may just go down in Colleen Wainwright History as the Week that Finally Won.

Notice that I did not say "the week I won", but "the week the week one won*." As in Week, 1; Colleen, 0.

I've got so many things going on so many fronts, so many flags in so many (mole)hills, so many plates spinning, so many metaphors cut adrift and left to moulder, that I'm seriously considering whether I took full leave of my senses in committing to so much this year, much less this month. And remember, I did hella consulting with smart people before agreeing to this year's commitments. So really, it's not like this is some fantasy list, totally ungrounded in any reality.

Anyway...

On Friday, I kind of lost it, the culmination of too many days of not enough sleep, with too many external commitments and not enough firewalling of personal time. If I didn't already know I'd blown it by the way everything I did that day taking twice as long as it usually did, I knew it for sure when I had the closest thing I've had to a fight with my significant other, The BF, whose patience can only be expected to extend so far.

There were signs along the way that things were going awry. The panicky feeling when I stare down my calendar and realize if I don't scrub something, I'll fall even further behind. Dreading fixed givens of any kind, even the fun ones, because it means I'll have to stop working, and fall even further behind.

My solution for 40-something years when something wasn't working was to throw more coffee on it. More hours. More energy. More brainpower. Usually, it worked. Sure, I was tired after a push, but I knew I could catch up afterward.

Unfortunately, or not, it looks like those halcyon daze of being able to kite energy checks are over, or at least, with the equipment in its current state. Looking ahead, that means that if I want to have any chance of accomplishing what I've set out to do, I have a few choices:

cut back on commitments, so I can increase recharging time
cut back on farting around, so I can have more time for important stuff
dramatically change how I'm treating my physical plant, so that it's more resilient

I'd be lying if I said I was thrilled about the prospect of any of these. Plus, I have a feeling that the only reasonable course of action is a mix of all three.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that by grappling with this beastie, I'll not only feel and operate a lot better, but I'll come back with excellent info to report. Because I know I'm not the only one dealing with issues of balance in these crazy times.

In the meantime, I put it out there to the wise community. If you were in my shoes, where would you start? If you've been in my shoes, where did you start?

I'm starting by shutting down earlier when I can. I'm writing this at 9pm on Sunday, and figure it's my last act of the evening. I'd planned on taking one last spin through the presentation I'm giving tomorrow but truly, I think both the presentation and I will do much better by sleeping on it...

xxx
c

The video above (link to it on YouTube in case you can't see it) is but one of the many, many things I put together this crazy-ass past week. I have to say, I don't regret one minute of working on it, it's easily the most fun project I worked on, by a country mile.

*See? See? Ugh. Exhausted. Not good! Alissa and I are going to go to the "Say no to yes!" class together.