Learning to tell time...again

"That won't take long at all!" The words reverberate. Aloud or in my head, it's one of the most common sentences I utter. Somewhere along the way the amount of time it will take me to accomplish a task became intertwined with the amount of enjoyment I receive during the process of that task. And here I am again on a Saturday, late morning, thinking of today's list and how delightful that list appears to me.

There's no way I'm going to get these things done. I know because I've been sanding these bone dry clay pendants I made a couple of days ago. (Using one of those great scrubbie things normally intended for dish-washing.) For about an hour. Perhaps 12 of them are acceptable. I made more than 30.

When I've finished these, I also need to:

• do the same to the holes in the clay beads I also recently made,
• continue working on the online project that consumed me yesterday at the end of the work day and again this morning before I had my first cup of coffee,
• put away the laundry I washed and folded a couple of days ago,
• wash more,
• do some household chores,
• put some things in my car that need to be taken from the garage to storage,
• put away a bunch of beads still sitting out from my last design-fest,
• photograph some necklaces I've never put in my online galleries,
• resume my incomplete office organizing project,
• stop this list immediately. I'm stressing myself out.
  

Everything on this list actually will give me much pleasure to accomplish. Which means that in my mind I think it won't be a big deal to check it all off. Only, it will be a very big deal since no doubt the phone will ring multiple times and I will answer and chat, and I'll stop for meals, and other life tasks will emerge that never make it onto a list.

I need to learn to tell time.