When we all had to hunker down in shut-down "stay-at-home" mode in the midst of this terrible coronavirus pandemic, I devised for myself a somewhat entertaining means for imposing discipline on the very, very long to-do list that I'd accumulated: the
Quarantine Task Jar. That quarantine task jar has served me exceptionally well, and I'm pretty pumped to have checked off as many items as I have. You all have been polite enough to avoid asking why the task jar hasn't been mentioned lately. Perhaps you recognize that I've been laboring pretty hard outside on the yard while the weather is cooperating, and while I've still got the gumption to do it, and that means I've not needed the discipline of task jar duty assignment. That's why about half the days in May did not include drawing a random task out: I already had a full task agenda.
It seems I've also gotten pretty bogged down on some days by the incredibly crazy-long to-do lists that include lots of things not coming from the task jar...just daily things or actions or whatever. The above photo is from this past Wednesday morning. I barely made a dent in it even though I was pretty focused all day long. And for a few days earlier this month, I also found myself, well, finishing out one of the early tasks:
building up the back yard in order to alleviate some drainage issues resulting from the
HVAC drain line project.
While most of the tasks drawn thus far have been dealt with to a state of completion, some have remained deserving of further attention or are waiting for the next stage of whatever process applies. Early in April a task slip was drawn that caused me to spend time thinking about and planning for the next phase of smarthome upgrades,
as discussed in this blog post from April 13th. I hadn't yet worked out all the finer details of it, and I needed to inventory the smart fixtures and figure out what else I had to order, as well as figure out what new switch plates would be needed and in what configurations. My ponderings in the meantime had led me to revise even the most recent plan and that necessitated the review that ended up taking several hours Tuesday night and into Wednesday afternoon. I've ordered the rest of what I need and also updated the relevant fuse and breaker notations so that the electrician won't have to figure that out when he's here.
Finally, a couple of the tasks drawn from the jar have not been easily tackled and they interrupted the flow, because I had to carry them over until I could either find a way to deal with them, or get the proper motivation to take them on. I'll fess up to those at the end of this post. Even so, with those self-serving qualifiers now out of the way, I do have positive progress to report on other quarantine tasks.
Roofing Estimates Update (QTJ May 1st)
When this slip was drawn at the beginning of the month, I researched roofing companies and made phone calls to set up appointments,
as noted in this blog post. Since then, all three have come to examine the roof and gutters and I've got estimates now from two of them. The main issue is that the original LeafGuard gutters are failing: that was the unanimous opinion of all.
Each had a different idea about what I need to replace them with. I also got varying assessments of the other roof issues, including how the
upstairs balcony rubber roof is holding up and what might be the source of the
leaking around the front center dormer.
Spray Roundup (QTJ May 7th)
A very kind green slip was drawn at the end of the first week of the month: spray Roundup. I'd already done a good bit of this but found that the quarantine task jar proved useful in compelling me to get out and do another treatment, especially now that lots of weeds are coming up along the retaining wall and around the driveway area.
Ticket Stubs Album (QTJ May 8th)
One of my less onerous to-do items was to rework my
movie ticket stubs album to incorporate all the movies I saw through the Winston-Salem Cinema Society's Films on Fourth programs from 2003 to 2007.
Since the notebook is a chronology, but I'd not originally scanned and included these, I wanted to get them properly sorted and archived with all my other cinema stubs. It wasn't a long project but it's nice to check it off. As a reminder, the Instagram feed for my movie stubs can be found under the profile
ticketstubsstash.
Read Professional Literature (QTJ May 9th)
I regret to report that I am not always attentive to a regular schedule of reading the various educational journals that come through here. That made it a wise task jar choice, and I already had in mind two themed journals on coaching that would be the focus of that time. I've been putting them off because (1) it is very much an area of professional endeavor for me, elevating its importance; and (2) I already knew that I'd have strong reactions to some of the content and needed to have the cleared mental space and energy for annotating and capturing the resulting germination or crystallization of ideas.
My rule for myself is that I have to spend a minimum of an hour on any task drawn, in full recognition of the reality that some to-do items in the jar are extensive or involved or ongoing. I've devoted far more than that to these, including coffee time outside on nice mornings; I've also had a couple of days where I kept thinking and cogitating while I was outside digging or hauling and had to repeatedly step back inside the kitchen in order to make additional notes on particularly thorny or troubling articles.
Plumber/Irrigation (May 10th)
This slip was drawn on a Sunday but I'd already begun tackling it. Still, it motivated me to make a new initial contact with a utilities contractor as well as follow up with my regular plumber for some guidance. This is still very much in process because it seems increasingly likely that installing a second meter for irrigation and landscaping is going to be prohibitively expensive. More to come...
Will: Household Distribution (May 16th)
I got my will drafted, finally, back in 2012. One provision in it, though, was a statement to the effect that there would be a supplemental list of household items, antiques, clocks, and so on that were specifically designated for certain people, rather than getting lumped into the whole estate.
For instance, if my sister Allison wants our mother's sofa that I inherited, she gets first dibs on it. My mother's wedding china should go either to her or to one of her two sons, if they want it. But here it is 8 years later and I had yet to create that list...until the task jar told me to!
Morgue Insulation (May 17th)
Back in the day, I suppose the north side of the cellar is where coal would have been delivered. When
FIRST, Inc., the chemical-and-alcohol treatment organization, owned the house in between the Roedigers and me, they walled it in as a tool room, and now it's just called The Morgue.
Thanks to various electrical or internet cable projects, some of the insulation in there, which is basically under
the dining room, has gotten dislodged. It's been yet another untouched to-do item that the task jar very kindly forced me to finally deal with.
It doesn't seem overly charitable to suggest that I've achieved quite a string of successes with this quarantine task jar gimmick. I'm keeping the growing stack of accomplished task slips on the counter beside the task jar, and it makes me feel pretty good. However, two of the drawn tasks have not yet been successfully completed. I mentioned one of those, from way back at the start of the shut-down period:
insulating behind the bar cabinets in the attic. I put that one aside because, after I looked at it, my whole idea about how to approach it had to be revised and I needed time to come up with a new plan. The other item that I've stumbled over was drawn on May 2nd: "Revise Post-Observation PowerPoint." The Instructional Leadership Institute that I offer to administrators, coaches, teacher leaders, and others is pretty solid overall. I did a major design overhaul three years ago, cleaning it up but also giving the PPT shows a more unified look and feel. As my ideas have evolved and as I've attempted to update especially the final "chapter" in that institute (Post-Observation Conferencing), it is due for a bit of further cleaning up, and I need to revisit its organizational structure, and there are some ways I can tighten it up and make it more concise.
But I also need to be in a particular frame of mind for that sort of endeavor, and I'm too distracted by the many other things I've been messing around with these last few weeks. The official report at this time is that I have failed to follow through on that task jar slip, so it is still hanging out there haunting me until I can get it done.
