My Writes: The best-laid plans...

Blast! Had I known last night, when I finally tipped into bed at 2 am, that this morning would be one of complete mayhem, I'd have forced myself to stay awake a bit longer in order to finish off the publication I'm working on (Practical ICT, in case you're interested). Unfortunately, a malignant fate decreed that I wouldn't get started properly until around 10:40. And now look at me: back against the wall, desperately trying to catch up, even multi-tasking on things that cannot, ideally, be multi-tasked, and what do I do? Take time out to write this blog.

That's the trouble with all this pressure: the constant desire to always be doing something other than what it is you are doing, or are supposed to be doing. It isn't merely a displacement activity though. I need to limber up, and writing a short blog is, for me, a good way to do so. By getting my thoughts into creative mode, I will be much better placed for the next activity which, on the face of it, is not creative at all. I am going to be typing up some notes I took in a training session I attended, all the while thinking of how I will deliver the same training when the time comes. That requires creativity, not drudgery.

Since waking up this morning we have received a visit from the mother of a friend of ours, a phone call from our accountants, a phone call from another acquaintance, and have made two phone calls to a department store enquiring about a missing refund, and I have followed up a phone call received yesterday asking if I was available to do some work. I downloaded my emails but decided they can wait for now; they will have to wait. I need to get on, not least because very soon there will be yet another interruption when someone comes to inspect our gas installation. There is nothing wrong with it, of course, but given that we don't want to wake up and, as a blues song puts it*, find our own selves dead, it seemed like a good idea to take up the suggestion.

But it's impossible to work completely effectively with constant interruptions, and the fear of even more interruptions. I wish I could do what Joe Cocker advocates in a song called "Dangerous Mood":

"I parked the car down the street,

And unplugged the phone,

To make it look just like

Ain't nobody home."

Interesting concept, that, unplugging a phone. I wonder if today's kids realise that that was an older generation's equivalent of going offline (literally: I suppose that's where the term comes from)?

Enough persiflage. Time to get back to the grindstone, typing up notes whilst cringing at the sound of my own voice on a recent Women of Web 2 podcast. Later on I shall complete Practical ICT, write a blog post or an article for my other website, ponder a post mentioning me, written by Bud Hunt, and have some lunch. Yes, lunch. So mundane, yet so important. I'd better get on.