Catch Up Day

10 Apr, 2023

I think it's fair to say I've been slacking in most areas of my life recently. It usually happens with a build up of trouble in my work life and a general feeling of burn out. Boy have I needed this time off.

My self-care reviews and organisation, chores around the house, messages and emails left unactioned and not replied to. When it comes to the house, it's not just me; my wife has shared in the laziness too. But there's stuff to do, and I can do it, so do it I shall.

Today's post then is going to be a bit of a two-in-one, a before and after. I'm writing the before part now, first thing in the morning, to list all the bits I'm aiming to get done today and why. The why being important to cement that reasoning in my head, else it's just another thing that can wait till tomorrow. Then the next day. Then the next, and so on.

Then at the end of the day, I'll come back to it and finish the post off with what I've managed to achieve, where I might have fallen short, and what I'm going to do about that.

So, let's begin.

Before

Messages

I'm pretty bad at responding when I'm in the thick of it. My usual pattern is to leave the message as unread, the idea being that it'll prompt me in the morning when I'm hopefully feeling better/more energised/more engaged. Then when I'm not, it stays as unread, both to remind me later when I'm hopefully feeling better, and at worst to try and shame me into reply.

That rarely actually works (a problem for another day), so I have a few unread messages: one from an old friend, one from a friend. I fell out of contact with for a while, and one from a close friend who knows what I'm about. On top of that, I need to rearrange a meet up for this weekend, and I have a response from CEX regarding a bad Trustpilot review I left after buying a game from them that turned out to have a massive dent in the disc. That's been there about a week now.

Four tasks then:

• [ ] Reply to friends - life is nothing without connections, and connections die unless you nurture them
• [ ] Reach out to another old friend - it's been a while, and they have a demanding life
• [ ] Re-arrange Saturday's gym meetup to accommodate other plans
• [ ] Reply to CEX re dented game disc

Chores

Hoo boy. Chores.

We're not living in squalor. Washing up gets done, sides wiped down, l things get tidied. But that's just a fraction of the weekly chores that need doing in this place.

So what have we got:

• [ ] Clear the laundry - the basket is starting to overflow
• [ ] Clean the bathroom, especially the bath; had to give the dog a bath first thing after spotting chewing gum in his paw...
• [ ] Dust upstairs and downstairs
• [ ] Hoover upstairs and downstairs
• [ ] Clean the hoover and let dry
• [ ] Mop downstairs; use the dry pads upstairs
• [ ] Use the handheld hoover under the bed and down the sites of the sofas
• [ ] Put away all dishes from the draining board and dishwasher
• [ ] Deep clean the sink
• [ ] Clean up the dog sick stain on the carpet upstairs
• [ ] Tidy the small sofa in my office
• [ ] Tidy my desks
• [ ] Set up the rest of the KALLAX cupboard inserts into our TV stand. A quality of life project for the wife. One down, four more to go.

Easily achievable in one day, right?

And the rest

• [ ] Make first council tax payment. We finally got our bill through, and first payment is due this Saturday, so get that out of the way.
• [ ] Fill the council tax bill for later purposes.
• [ ] Update my weight loss tracker with my daily kcals consumed and my Apple Watch stats. I use this as part of my reviews to track my progress and make adjustments. Can't do those reviews without the data, and I'm behind by two months. Should be a half hour thing.
• [ ] Catch up with my Mail Agents tasks. I signed up to this project that tracks how Royal Mail does delivering it's post by sending addressed envelopes with RFID tags in for reposting. I'm behind by four letters. Easy thing to just do, just got to do it.
• [ ] Re-order my prescription. I run out Thursday evening, should be through by Friday morning.
• [ ] Re-order the dogs prescription. No allergy meds = more scratching, and that's not fair on him
• [ ] Buy more olive oil for the roast later. Had to use the last of it to break down the chewing gum in the dogs paw.
• [ ] Resubscribe to Waking Up via a reduced fee scholarship. I can afford to pay now, just not the full amount. Fortunately, they offer reduced fee scholarships to anyone who asks for it. They still offer free ones to anyone with no questions asked, but as I'm now in the position where I can afford to pay at least something, I definitely should. It's 100% worth it.

So, a lot to do.

How did I do?

After

Messages

• [x] Reply to friends - done first thing (well, first thing after writing the list)
• [x] Reach out to another old friend - done whilst waking up the wife.
• [ ] Re-arrange Saturday's gym meetup to accommodate other plans
• [ ] Reply to CEX re dented game disc

Chores

• [x] Clear the laundry - done, all four loads worth
• [x] Clean the bathroom, especially the bath - done, with the wife's help.
• [x] Dust upstairs and downstairs - done; I always forget how pleasing dusting is.
• [x] Hoover upstairs and downstairs- done, although I really need to replace the hoover's hose at some point, so I don't have to hold it together while I hoover.
• [x] Clean the hoover and let dry - done
• [x] Mop downstairs; use the dry pads upstairs - done. God bless the Flash Speed Mop, the dry pads really work.
• [x] Use the handheld hoover under the bed and down the sites of the sofas - done, and that was way past time.
• [x] Put away all dishes from the draining board and dishwasher - done first thing
• [x] Deep clean the sink - done by the wife
• [x] Clean up the dog sick stain on the carpet upstairs - done, finally. Might have been there a few days...
• [x] Tidy the small sofa in my office - done
• [x] Tidy my desks - done-a-roo
• [x] Set up the rest of the KALLAX cupboard inserts into our TV stand. - did with the wife. I hate IKEA.

And the rest

• [x] Make first council tax payment - done, with pride and hate
• [x] Fill the council tax bill for later purposes - done
• [x] Update my weight loss tracker with my daily kcals consumed and my Apple Watch stats - done, and it's not very clear why I'm struggling this year. More on that later.
• [x] Catch up with my Mail Agents tasks - done, all four. Not sure the data on those RFID trackers will be helpful this go around, but they have it regardless.
• [ ] Re-order my prescription - couldn't do it, online portal says I need a prescription review (why they never contact me to tell me this I'll never know). Problem for tomorrow then.
• [ ] Re-order the dogs prescription - vets are closed today; they're usually open Sunday hours on Bank Holiday Monday, but guess they've closed for Easter. Another problem for tomorrow.
• [x] Buy more olive oil for the roast later - done
• [x] Resubscribe to Waking Up via a reduced fee scholarship - and done

Review

I couldn't quite decide this morning if the list was going to be unbearable or really easy. Turns out it was somewhere in the middle.

Thanks to my wife, the only ones we didn't get through were either physically unable to be done (thanks in part to my GP springing another medication review on me with no notification) or because I just don't have the will to finish them. I know the CEX email is just an email. I know the rearranging is just a message. But after all of the above, plus a gym session, plus some distractions along the way, I'm calling it a day on anything that requires the bare minimum. And that's ok.

The main distraction was my wife snapping her nail clean off by re-arranging the sofa cushions, of all things. She caught her fake nail on the edge, which then took the nail it was stuck to clean off. With no Vaseline or plasters in the house, that was a 20 minute trip to Morrison's and back, then a bit longer to clean and cover the pad. That's going to be a fun six months waiting for that to grow back.

The other distraction was pre-list, but something I had to keep an eye on through the day. Woke up this morning to discover a wad of chewing gum in my dog's paw that must have got lodged there's on his walk last night. Frantic Googling told me to use olive oil to break it down, and just to just monitor for any symptoms that should present in 24 hours. It didn't look like he managed to get any off, but he'd certainly been chewing around it, so I've been keeping an eye on him just in case. All happy and healthy though, so all good there.

The KALLAX cupboard were by far the biggest pain. IKEA annoys me at the best of times (except the SONGESAND line - so, so easy to put together), but we figured the cupboards consisting of a door, two hinges, and a folded cardboard interior would be nice and easy to do. It took two hours, a lot of sweat, and has ended up being wildly inconsistent from door to door. Still, the wife is now satisfied that the room looks neater, and that means a job well done.

Honestly, I'm pretty proud. On top of the gym session later in the day, this has been the most I've managed to do in a day in months. Plus, instead of trying to do it all myself like I usually do, I worked with my wife to get it done. An entirely satisfactory job.

And now I'm in desperate need of a shower. Bathrooms never stay clean for long.

Words - 1,742
Running total - 17,430 (34.9%, 760 words ahead of target)

Thanks for reading! Through April, I’m writing a blog post every day with the aim of hitting 50,000 words by the end. And If you enjoyed this post and want to follow along, you can subscribe via email or RSS.