Often, on a Friday afternoon, I find myself in my office at work. I'm not usually teaching on a Friday afternoon, but there is often a course next door in the Academy, so I'll be in my office catching up on paperwork and trying to get my lists down to 0.
I do love trying to get my inbox down to nothing or nearly empty, but it's a total false economy.
The incoming for all of us is catastrophic as far as work is concerned; I'll have an inbox from my work email address and an inbox from my personal email address, I'll have my Slack messages from all the different Slack channels, and then I'll have my task list on Dentally (our clinical system) and my task list on Asana, which is my all over task list.
And so I can sit happily ploughing away at this, picking up stones and seeing what's underneath them, doing a bit more, and doing a bit more until my time runs out or I feel like I'm finished or I'm too tired.
The risk is not being able to stop, though; the risk is thinking that I'd have to stay here until everything is done because the truth is, everything is never done. Often, half my jobs create another job, and certainly, if I continue to pick up stones, I'll always see other jobs to do, and I'll just sit here for the rest of my life.
Trying to scratch the itch of 'getting finished' is an absolutely false proposition. As you know, if you've ever had eczema or any other skin condition, scratching the itch only makes the itch itchier; the best thing you can do is not scratch the itch.
Do what you can close up, go home and do something else.
The joy is never in the finishing; the joy is in the doing,
There'll always be something else to do come Monday.
Blog Post Number - 4194