In retirement I don't have the direction that a worker has -- doing a specified task for 8 hours, getting paid and stroked for it. I think of myself as an entrepreneur, but I don't have just one product. I quilt. I'm fixing up my house. I'm planning a trip to Peru next month. I exercise. I enjoy myself.
Scheduling these disparate activities creates a lot of down time. I called a contractor last week. He said he could come Friday, but would call. Nothing. Yesterday I called an electrician to repair my porch light. Nothing. Waiting for returned calls, waiting for people to show up.
Yesterday I also called a gardener to prune a tree. He called early this morning and said he would come at 9. At 8:50, having washed the dishes, I sewed a few blocks on the scrappy utilitarian quilt I'm making. The gardener called a few minutes after 9, having misunderstood my street name -- not a difficult thing to do, even for a native English speaker. Now, 9:20, he has come and gone.
They talk about how much time, for example, waiting in traffic costs the economy. I wonder how much my waiting costs?
My next self-improvement project: keeping a to-do list of mindless, un-messy projects for down times.
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