Time warp

Parkinson’s law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. My new law: Leisure time contracts no matter what you do. In fact, it vanishes.

Recently, I decided I needed to cut back on my workload in order to maintain my sanity (not to mention my car and my piles of filing and my medical appointments). So, I reduced my editing work to about half what I was doing before. This, I was sure, would free up time to do all the things I just haven’t been able to find time for. Like be retired.

This was my first week at this new lower work level. So far, the week has been a blur of running around all day and then coming home late in the afternoon to do my (reduced) load of work. I’m staying up late to finish it—even though I’m sure I was doing all of these other things even while I was working more.

Where did all that free time I imagined go?

This is so familiar. It’s what I said when I finished grad school and imagined all the free time to read non-required stuff. Then, I spent 30 years in a career where I pretty much read required stuff. So I took summers off, and imagined all that free time to read non-required stuff. Somehow, my summers flew by with no such free time. So, then I thought retirement would bring all this excess time to do bonbons and soap operas. Instead, I got so busy, the soap operas fell by the wayside before I even got started. As for the bonbons, who needs leisure time for that? Despite being “retired,” I discovered this great part-time work that involves reading required stuff. (A theme emerges here.) So, now I cut back on my workload so I could have more leisure time. I’ve let my magazines pile up and figured I could spend leisurely days filing papers, lunching with friends, and reading non-required stuff. Instead, I find leisure time has left the building.

So, where did this week disappear to? Let’s see … I caught up on emails with friends. I made several appointments and already kept a couple of them. I started a new “get fit” regime that will include visits to the gym (“Visits.” What a gentle  word for what happens at the gym). I did fail to finish one bit of required reading for a research meeting this evening.

Oh, yeah. And I got a new phone. The camera on my other one went totally haywire, and I’m really into taking pictures for this blog. So clearly, I needed a new phone. Anyone who has a smart phone knows that getting a new one is considerably more complicated than just activating the number. 

The dealer kindly transferred my contacts, but a lot were duplicated,  so that required some cleaning up. To do that, I was required to read stuff about how this gadget works. I had to do that online. There were virtually no printed instructions. I guess if you’re high-techie enough to get a smartphone, you have no further need of print media of any sort. Also, that transfer process didn’t include my calendar, which I consider the brain of my phone. How many hours does it take to fill in a calendar? All I can say is that this accounts for a lot of my missing time. And then there’s the whole process of “personalizing” the phone—which includes personalizing sounds, screens, icons, apps, widgets, and some other stuff that has clearly gone the way of those missing hours.

So, anyhow, the phone is finally up and running. Although I still find myself wondering whether this is the phone I want. It’s actually fine. In fact, it’s totally excellent, technologically speaking (as if I knew enough to judge). But it’s biggish and clunky. Too bad, Janis. Two-year contract, and I sure I can’t afford the cost of changing it. Nor am I sure I’d want to if I could. I ask myself, would I rather have a larger, clunky phone that does more (faster Internet, more memory for faster operations, better camera, etc.) or a smaller, simpler, lightweight, easy-to-handle phone that does the things I need, but slower, and that has an inferior camera. This was the dilemma I faced in the store, and it lingers. You can see where another chunk of my time has gone: ruminating on my choice of a phone, for Pete’s sake!

But never fear. All of this frantic activity will come to a most pleasant end tomorrow, when we travel to Oregon to visit friends. We’ll have dinner with a friend in Portland, then see my sister who lives near Portland for breakfast, and then travel to the coast to meet up with other friends to share good conversations and some quiet time at the ocean. Perhaps this will rejuvenate me enough to tackle another week of reduced workload.

I’ll take some pictures with my fancy new, clunky, high-tech superphone. That should make for a better story next time.