Tuesday Ten: Ten Ways to Waste Time

Funny, isn't it? When I've got time to, say read or sew or chat with a friend on the phone, that's what I do-- pick up my book or my sewing or the phone. Time to clean out the closet? Call a stranger? Plan lessons? Scrub the toilets? Suddenly there are many absorbing activities that demand my immediate attention. Heck, I even waste time doing productive stuff when I should be doing something even more productive. Time to work on a huge project in the yard? I clean the closet instead. Need to clean out the closet? Gee, I've got lots of lessons to plan. Maybe I should plan to paint the house...by hand. I'll bet I'd waste time getting all kinds of stuff done.

Ten Ways to Waste Time (When you should be doing something more productive)

1. Watch chickens. (All day long.) Yeah, you're going to be sick of me and my stupid chickens pretty soon. I manage to work it into every conversation. "Thank you for the packages, Mr. UPS man. I've got chickens! My chicken laid an egg. I finally named her, wanna know what her name is?" Pretty soon he's going to toss the packages out the van door as he drives by. Aaaanyway...They're pretty funny creatures, chickens. There's something soothing about watching them and listening to their little chicken noises. And, um, you have to keep an eye on them so that the neighborhood cats won't eat them. Which would go over a lot better as an excuse if the chickens weren't way bigger than the cats, who are mostly afraid of those big scary birds.

2. Joggle. (3 minutes. Per game. So, like 30 minutes, because Joggle is like potato chips. You can't play just once.) Like Boggle, only better because you can play it while you're really supposed to be lesson planning or researching online for your Shakespeare unit (or bug studies or whatever).

3. Scrabble. (A really long time.) Ditto on the "you can play while you're supposed to be lesson planning," only it takes even longer than Joggle. Play this if you really really don't want to do those $%&#% lesson plans.

4. Clean something, just not what you're supposed to be cleaning. (About 15 minutes but you can milk it for another half hour if you're reaaaallly trying to avoid harder work.) If loving husband wants you to help haul all of that really messy junk to the curb, just tell him "Sure honey, I'll be there as soon as I'm done cleaning under the bathroom cabinets." Neglect to tell him that you clean and organize under the bathroom cabinets every couple months. Alphabetize the goods and such. Ponder whether it makes more sense for the toilet paper to go next to the extra shampoo or next to the clean towels. When loving husband is nearly finished with the messy job, haul a couple light things to the curb and apologize because the cabinets took way longer than you expected.

5. Try to read a stranger's mind. (Kind of like Joggle, it doesn't take long to play once, but you can't play just one time.) Play the ESP Game.

6. Make a pie. (Good for 2-3 hours, intermittently.) It's no fun to cook dinner-- boooooring! Pie is way more fun. It's way easier than it looks and it's impressive. Just make sure that everyone knows how hard you slaved to make them a homemade pie and that's the reason they're eating mac-and-cheese from a box.

7. Drop your pencil. (Anywhere from 1-20 minutes.) Take a page from the kids' book. Drop your pencil on the floor. Hem and haw. When asked why you're not getting anything done, say "I dropped my pencil." Get down to find the pencil. Pet the cat. Try to figure out what that weird-looking thing on the floor might be. Macaroni from two nights ago when we had pie? Wonder if it still tastes all right. Find out. Try to remember why you're under the table in the first place....

Yeah. You can really milk this one.

8. Blog. (Hours.)

9. Make a list. (Gah! Way too long. Years.) Wonderful husband's favorite time-waster. Instead of actually doing projects, make a list of projects that need to be done. Walk through the house room by room. Make your patient wife (shh...it's my blog so I can call myself whatever I want) follow you, a kind of two-fer-one timewaster. Ignore her when she rolls her eyes, um, rolls them patiently that is. Naturally you can't just use your handwritten list. You must put the list on the computer...so that you can delete them once they've been completed. Apparently crossing them off a piece of paper won't work. Prioritize the list. Add to the list the next day because you forgot some things. Re-prioritize the list.

Never look at the list again. When loving wife says, "Honey, what's next on the project list?" look blank and say "I don't know." Or, even better, especially if you're adventurous, say "What list?" Run.

Make another project list. Because you need one. Otherwise you might have to do a project.

10. Play with the kids. (A lifetime.) Say things like, "I'm raising children, not a yard." Always say it's because they grow up so fast and that you're meeting their developmental needs. Never admit that playing with the kids is just way more fun than schlepping stuff up out of the basement. Nobody cares that you think your kids are cool people to hang out with, they just want to know why there are cobwebs in the bathroom.

See how my sister Cristy wastes her time.