Why you don't get things done

There are so many people that say, “I wish the day was longer so that I could get everything done that I need to do.”

I was listening to people say this one day, and it made me think about why we can’t get the things done that we want to do each day. I have come up with some reasons that I think can contribute to why we wish the days were longer.

1. Social media – how much time do you spend each day checking Facebook, Instagram and all the other social media platforms. It is amazing how much time you can lose in a day by just spending time looking at all the various posts and feeds that appear.
2. Text messages – so many people figure that if they don’t get a quick response to an email, they can text you because then you will see it and immediately answer it. Well, that is another interruption that interferes with what you were trying to do.
3. Emails – the number of emails that we all get each day can be overwhelming, and we need to learn how to manage them. One thing that I have done is get my phone to only buzz with a couple of specific accounts receive email. I do have lots of accounts on my phone, so I need to manage which ones make noise, vibrate, and just want me to look at them.
4. Unorganized schedule – now that so many of us are working at home, having an unplanned or unorganized schedule can lead to not getting things done what we want to do. For me, I have found that I put all the things that I want to accomplish each day in my planner and then mark them off once they are completed. Sure, things can come up that will impact a day but at least I can see what got done and what didn’t get done and that helps a lot.
5. Other distractions – there are so many other things that can be a distraction and that can be music, conversations around you or just things that you can see that also might need to get done.

We all have challenges that we need to handle, and what I have done is set a schedule for myself for some of the key things that I need to get done quickly during a weekday. This has helped me keep on top of the various tasks, and it also gives me the time to do the other things that I enjoy doing. Being able to see all the different things that I have accomplished during a day helps, so everything I accomplish even if it wasn’t planned gets noted in my planner.

Something that I have found that also works is putting my phone on either vibrate only or silence for a bit of time so that I can focus on the task that I need to complete and that helps. Also, closing all the social media apps, websites, etc. can help eliminate the distraction of wanting to click to see what is new.

Being able to focus on the tasks that you need to focus on can make such a difference, and you feel good at the end of the day knowing that you got some of the tasks done. You might not get everything done, but at least you know where your day went, and it wasn’t entirely spent on social media and answering all those text messages.

 

 

Self checkouts

So many stores and implementing these self-checkout stations and part of me likes it for the quick one or two items, but I also don’t like it when 90% of the checkouts are now something I must do myself.

Recently we were shopping in a craft store, and they were pushing everyone to use the self-checkout which yes, I only have two balls of yarn, so I figured it should be relatively easy to do. I had to answer the normal questions, did I have a membership, yes, please scan your membership. Now, please scan your items. I did that and then do you have a coupon. I had to locate the button so that I could then scan the couple. Of course, it immediately says, have you finished scanning all your items. I had, but there was something that I couldn’t do at this self check out, and it was to add my senior's discount to my purchase.

There was a button that you could press to get assistance, so I pushed that and had to wait for a salesperson to come over so that they could give me my discount. Of course, when the person was walking over and the light on the top of the device was flashing, she asked if everything was ok. Why would I have pressed to get assistance button if everything was ok. She finally entered the discount, and I was able to make the purchase and get out of the store. If you give a senior’s discount or any other type of discount, make sure that these discounts are automatically available through the scanning of the membership.

Here is another situation that seems to be happening quite often when you use some of the big box store checkouts, especially when you purchase something from the pharmacy section. Some locations seem to have it set up that once the item is scanned, it deactivates the security tag on the item. Well, the location we were in this time doesn’t do that so, of course, the tag beeps when you are leaving the self-checkout area and then it again deeps when you are leaving the store.

So, maybe the self-checkouts are saving on the number of staff that is needed in a store which is saving the company money, but it is frustrating the customers which may decide to go to stores where there are people able to assist in getting you checked out in a timely manner with fewer frustrations. There are so many people looking for work right now and here stores are eliminating entry level jobs that students and semi-retired people want to do.

Self-checkouts are great when things work well, but they can be a frustration as well, and maybe stores should think about how these checkouts are impacting the customers that shop in these stores. A cost savings for the store could also mean an income lose for the company as people will find other ways of purchasing the items.

Getting back to writing

This entry could have quite a few different titles because of course being someone that has been writing for years, what do I mean getting back to writing. Quite a few years ago (late 2013) I was challenged to see if I could write for 365 days without missing a day. I decided to give that a try because I was someone that did enjoy writing and journaling, so I didn’t think it would be too hard to do. Well, I must admit that the first year of trying to write every day even if I only wrote a few words was a bit of a challenge.

I did achieve that writing and wrote for 365 days and thought at the end of it that maybe I could try to do it for another year. What helped me to continue to do the writing was tracking how many words I wrote each day so that I had a means of being able to see that I did write each day, and slowly the number of words that I wrote each day started to improve a bit.

The actual writing seemed to get better the more I wrote, and then I decided to give myself a challenge, and it was to see how many blogs entries I could write for this blog in one year. In 2016, I was able to post 107 blogs, which made me happy and showed me that writing and showing others my writing made me happy. Then life decided that it was going to put some challenges in front of me, so I didn’t get as much writing done, at least for my blogs. I was still writing in my journal every day, but I wasn’t writing to show other people what “Life how I see it” was doing. Writing for someone else wasn’t something that I could focus on, so I took until 2022 before I could start to write more blogs. Yes, between 2018 and 2021 I did write a few, but nothing like I did before then.

The good news, through all of this, was I was able to continue to write every day in my journal, which helped so much. Now, here we are in 2024, and I hope that I get back to getting more blog entries written because that is what makes me happy. The writing every day has continued, and I have now been able to write at least in my journal for over 10 years without missing a day.

So, this year, I hope that I can continue to write in my journal every day and write more blogs because that is something that makes me happy. I am finally seeing that being able to write the various blogs that I do is what makes me smile because I have someone that enjoys writing, and I am not going to let what anyone says stop me from writing. Being able to write and show my writing to others makes me happy, and hopefully before long I will be able to write for others as well. Until then, I will continue to write my blogs and, in my journal, and know that I am finally getting back to writing.