License to Kill...Time

For the last several days, I've been locked into a cycle of relaxation and anticipation--I've been prepping myself for a weekend at home in which to hack apart my to-do list, all the while reveling in my complete lack of responsibility for anything out-of-the-ordinary during my evenings at home. No wedding planning, no Christmas shopping, and no packing of bags--just switching over the laundry, hauling out the garbage, and writing lazy filler posts (A.K.A. hauling out the garbage).

Even though the dawn of the New Year is already a week behind us, I still find myself caught up in my resolutions and goals. I've already talked about how this is a year of opportunities for me, and having nothing concrete on the calendar for the near future has energized me to focus more on the things I want to do and less on the things that have to be done before I leave. Most of the major items on my to-do list--writing wedding thank-you cards; finishing off the video recording I committed to--are holdovers from last year. If I leave them on the backburner during the week, I'm not destroying my chances of ever finishing them; if anything, I'm waiting until I'm in the right mindset to tackle them--which is typically before 5-6 PM on Saturday.

I find I'm more amenable to chores and Stuff That's Gotta Get Done if I don't perceive that they're cutting into my free time. Blog posts I've been gearing up to write all day, for example, can be fun and cathartic even if I'm up until Stupid O'Clock writing them. I am happily choosing to spend my free time writing instead of sleeping. On the other hand, if I stay up past midnight watching anime with my wife and then suddenly remember I have to write a blog post for the next day, I get a bit cranky because I already have it in my head that I should be going to sleep now. I clamor for my weekends not so much for the extra number of free hours, but for the ability to work on something for however long it takes to finish and still have at least a little time left over to goof off. It's a subtle difference, but an important one.

Thus, I find myself enthused the possibilities of not one free weekend, but multiple free weekends. If I blow all of Saturday on video games and movies, I've still got Sunday. If I work all Sunday and only knock one item off my to-do list, I've still got another weekend in which to do the rest. I'm a control freak and a procrastinator, an interesting combination that allows me to gauge exactly how long I can put things off before I'll no longer have control of finishing them in time.

Having so much free time at my disposal allows me to procrastinate long enough to eventually feel guilty about leaving things undone, which, in turn, gives me self-generated motivation to finish things. Two or three days of nonstop goofing off is just as likely to inspire me to work as any externally imposed deadline, and often my work is better for not having been pressured into completion. Not always, but certainly often enough.

So I'm locked into this cycle of relaxation and anticipation. I'll get to the big stuff soon enough--for now I've got time to sit back and enjoy life as it happens.