My "Things To Be Done" List

Last week, during the weekdays, I started to write a list of outstanding things which I planned to do during the weekend, the two wonderful days away from aircraft, responsibilities and deadlines. Towards the end of the week, there were about ten items in my "Things to be done" list. Since I didn't have a plan to take my family out, I thought that this weekend would be just perfect for me to finish those outstanding items in the list and I was quite confident that I could at least complete 80% of the items in the list.

As usual, weekend flew by so quickly and all of a sudden, I found myself sitting at my office desk on Monday morning, looking at my "Things to be done" list, with a very bad Monday morning feeling. Too bad that I only managed to complete two items but fortunately, those two were quite important and the most time consuming ones.

Weekends have always been too short and insufficient, and I believe that most people feel the same way. Sometimes, I wish that I don't have to go to bed during weekends so that I could squeeze out the weekend till the last drop of it, but then, getting up late on Sunday morning is irresistible.

A Technician appeared at the door to wake me up from my dream. "There's a briefing downstairs, please attend," he said and walked away. I lazily got up from my chair. There was a very strong resistance from within me. I had to force myself to walk out of my office. I sat down in the office downstairs and started to listen to my boss who talked about "changing the impossible to possible".

I tried my best to pay attention to all the nonsense he was trying to deliver, but soon my mind started to wander...to the last weekend, to the next weekend, to the "To be done" list in my pocket. Some of the items in the list had been carried forward from one weekend to another for several times. Too bad that they had been left to rot in the list for a long period. I also recalled the nice Sunday morning, I woke up, yawned, stretched and pulled my blanket up to my neck and attended another session of nice peaceful sleep, no bosses, no briefing and no engine noise.

I woke up from my dream when my name was mentioned by my boss. I had to quickly pretend that I was listening. I was lucky that it wasn't a question that was thrown at me, otherwise it would had been obvious that I was in another world just now. I threw a look at the others in the office and noticed a few dreaming faces around.

It was a very bad Monday. I could hardly recover from the blues. I didn't have the appetite to pounce on my work. I couldn't kick myself to a higher gear. This seldom happened to me, but I hate it when it hit me. My work would slow down and accumulate. The next day, I would have a backlog to be done.

However, I wasn't worried about my condition because, it is normal for a human being to be inconsistent in his daily performance. People vary in the amount and type of energy they have day by day. That's why in some days, people are so energetic, but in other days, they don't have the same enthusiasm. Did I just escaped from the word "lazy"?

I survived the rest of the day with the blues, I did some work, but I didn't do much.

I looked at my watch, the normal working hours was going to end. I still had a lot of outstanding tasks but, I wasn't going to stay on. I wasn't in the mood to be productive today. My feet were just waiting to walk out of this place. I would continue my work tomorrow. I informed my Technician that I was going home, quickly grabbed my bag and headed towards the car park.

The rate at which my feet stepped forward was different compared to the rate when I was coming to work. There was a great boost of energy, to go home, to the place I love most, although there was no Sunday waiting for me there.

Walking in the eagerness to get home fast, I accidentally stepped on a shallow puddle of water. Soon, I felt wetness on the centre of my right sole. I quickly remembered, there was a tiny crack on the sole of my shoe. It had to be the culprit that had let the water in.

I reached the car park and from far, I could still recognize my car although the original colour was fading away due to the amount of dirt on it. I sat in my car and before I started the engine, I took out my "Things to be done" list and had a look again. Item (1) said, "wash the car" and item (2) clearly read, "Buy new shoes". Both had been in my "Things to be done" list for quite some time. Putting asterisks beside the items might had pulled a bit of my "lazy" attention. I wrote some asterisks and quickly drove home.

Most of the time, I'm busy, but I'm also lazy, am I not?


life, work