Doin' the overcommitment tango

I've got way too much to do for too many projects. I'd like to say I don't know how I manage to find myself in this predicament, but it happens too often for me to play the innocent. I don't think ahead, I don't say "no" often enough, and I fail to ask for details when someone says, "Oh, this won't take a lot of your time" or "This will be fun!" Uh-huh.

So I said yes to being in the Purim spiel. Fun, sure, but I should have considered I'd need to go to rehearsals as well as show up for the performance. And nobody mentioned the need for getting costume and props together until after I'd agreed to be a serving girl/assassin/woman in the crowd, and that I had to write my lines on 3x5 cards because it's likely I won't remember them so need something to prompt me besides an 8-1/2x11 script. The show is this Saturday evening, and though it is, indeed, fun (most of the time), I'll be glad when it's over, and I can get on with all the other stuff I've committed to, like getting all the Davis Double Century registration information up on the Web site so riders can actually sign up, working with the bike club's Web guy on the site's redesign, working three mornings a week, preparing my friend Lisa's manuscript for self-publishing, and oh yeah, getting on my bicycle and riding so I can make that 500-miles-in-March goal. This doesn't even take into account errands, laundry, getting my bike repaired, all the usual "gotta-get-those-things-done-soon" stuff.

I realize that for many people (you know who you are, Pica), this list will seem paltry. But the fact remains that I really don't like having so many things to do. Or, rather, I do like having lots of things to do, but I don't want any of them to be tied to specific times, dates and places. Having something on the calendar that requires my presence makes me nervous and looking for a way to get out of it. Most of the time, though, I can't bow out gracefully, so I go reluctantly, and then have a perfectly fine time once I'm there. So it's not the thing, itself, that I dislike, just that it's scheduled. Ad hoc is my friend.