When You Have the Attention Span of a Gnat

A friend and I were talking about the challenges of getting things done when you have a short attention span. I was reminded of this little “day in the life” account I wrote a few years ago, based on a particular Saturday I had just suffered through. Two notes: I’m usually not a slob and no cats were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Fun activity – see if you can count how many tasks were actually completed.

• Sat morning – wake up, do a few cleaning chores, including some vacuuming. Leave the vacuum out so I can finish the house later.
• Go outside and mow the lawn.
• Finish mowing and decide to weed whack and sweep the sidewalk.
• On the way to the shed for the weed whacker, decide I’m finally sick of looking at the sagging section of rush fence in the backyard. Get zip ties from inside house and start messing around with the fence.
• Decide I need a new section of fence. Leave all supplies lying in the yard while I go inside to call around for fencing.
• Go outside to finish weed whacking.
• Talk to neighbor for 45 minutes about state of US politics.
• Finish weed whacking.
• Go inside to take parts off a bike I’m going to sell to swap them onto my new bike.
• Remove various parts from bike I’m selling and corresponding parts from new bike.
• Leave dismembered bikes on kitchen floor.
• Put parts in kitchen sink for cleaning.
• Start the dishwasher.
• Look out the open back door and realize I’m tired of looking at the chipped paint on the back steps and decide to finally paint them using supplies purchased 2 years ago.
• Find concrete degreaser. Go look for paint.
• Drag out all paint cans and painting supplies; still don’t find paints.
• Decide that since paint cans are out, I should touch up the spots on walls where I recently moved some art around.
• Take art off walls and pile on DR table where they slide and list alarmingly.
• Notice dirty breakfast dishes on table. Can’t put them in dishwasher since it’s full and running. Hope art doesn’t slide into greasy dishes.
• Pile dishes in sink, in the side that’s not full of bike parts.
• Degrease porch.
  Finally find porch paint, in first place I looked.
• Take tire off one of the bike wheels, leave tire and wheel piled on laundry room floor (as the day wears on, narrowly miss getting tangled in the tire and tripping, about 25 times).
• Decide backyard water feature must be cleaned this minute. Pull the drain plug and wander back to check on porch.
• While waiting for porch to dry after being degreased, paint the front and back doors (after all, I have the paints out). Put one coat on front and one coat on back door.
• Start painting porch.
• Paint the horizontal surfaces of the steps.
• Realize I now can’t get back into the house through the back door.
• Since I’m stuck outside anyway, put another coat of paint on the front door.
• Remember water feature. Go clean it some more.
• Go back to back porch. Paint still wet.
• Try to let myself in front door to work on bike some more, but it’s locked.
• Get tired of being outside, so do gymnastic move to get back into house through back door without stepping on wet paint.
  Argue with cats and dog who do not understand why they can’t leave the house.
• Get hungry. Eat. Pile more dishes in the sink.
• Take bike further apart (yes, amazingly, there are still parts left on the bike), leaving the parts where they fall on the kitchen floor.
• Go back outside – see that first coat of paint has dried on steps Apply second coat, just as widely spaced raindrops begin to fall. Shrug off the rain – it’s only a sprinkle. Keep painting until it becomes impossible to deny that it’s raining.
• Frantically set up tarp over wet paint. Shove painting supplies under tarp and hope for the best (foreshadowing – it didn’t end well for the paint).
• Depart in pouring rain for hardware store to buy rush fencing rolls.
• Come back from hardware store to bad situation on porch. Wipe the wet paint off the porch as best I can so it will dry enough to let my pets outside because they’ve been really impatient. Almost all of both coats come off, cancelling out my earlier work.
• Cat comes back in, tracking little green paw prints all over laundry room floor.
• Read paint can and discover that paint is bad for kitties.
• Clean feet of screaming cat.
• Give up on painting and go back to working on the bikes.
• Eat dinner and pile dishes in increasingly full sink. Resist emptying the dishwasher, preferring to pile dishes up in proximity to greasy bike parts.
• Try not to splash dishes with greasy citrus cleaner while cleaning bike parts.
• Think about spackle about 50 times but never manage to get further than that.
• Trip over vacuum cleaner about 3,974 times, but never get around to vacuuming the rest of the house.
• Finish the day at about 1:00 AM – only to get up and do it all again the next day (minus green-footed cat).