Learn to control money but do not allow it to control you

Memory_Girl

Firewalker wrote: »

I trew away the receipt for my brand new car several years back and poor OH retreived it from the willy bin. Firewalker

OK - please tell me this is not what I think it is - cos with all the men in your house I am now really worried :rotfl:

Sorry for lowering the tone:D

MG

Firewalker

Oh, Lord; it is my spelling. But I thought that this word should be 'beep'ed.

FW

Firewalker

Note to self: please make sure that you check your writing for spelling mistakes and typos. There are situations when this is important...Well, having decided this on it is time to move forward.

Last night I went with friends to a lovely pub for dinner. It was great except that being a very cheap drunk I got rather tipsy. This affected my sleep and today I am feeling tired and generally not up to it.

Despite the tiredness one frog was consumed and another one is being consumed. Admittedly the task that was completed took all of about two minutes but its effects are far reaching. Sending a letter when one needs to is very important – unfortunately it is one of the things that I end up delaying because somehow I do not see it as productive work. The larger task is actually, finally getting on with the book I have been meaning to write for some time – the book that people would like to read (and buy, possibly; but after a certain time we may put it on the web as a pdf). For some time I have been thinking that a good way to go is to write it with friend and co-author (academic). We will certainly finish it faster than I will on my own, we are so complementary that the book will be better than if any one writes is separately. Finally, half of something is always much more than a whole nothing. With this one the first grog is to divide it into self contained smaller frogs – still ugly as hell and needing eating.

Now I would like to get back to productive and unproductive effort because I feel that I have hit on something here. This is a very important and tricky distinction – in fact this is probably the next stage of frog eating. First is: eat your frog first thing in the morning and start with the biggest and ugliest. The second stage is to identify your frogs and classify them according to how important they are in getting you where you want to be and how ugly they are (or how long have you delaying the eating). In other words, one has to learn to identify the productive from unproductive effort.

Confusion seeps in because productive effort is not only the effort that immediately delivers the goods; there is a productive chain. In my case, productive effort is not only generating text, but also reading, researching, experimenting with style. Productive effort is sending a letter to establish or renew a contact that can be useful in marketing. Productive effort is invoicing on time; chasing expenses etc.

Mmmm...needs further thought and figuring out or not?

Firewalker

InaPickle

*Ribbit*

Firewalker

Good morning people,

today is Good Friday and friend and I are continuing on the book. It is absolutely vital to get a shared feeling about its essence together - after that we can separate and write. We also have somewhat different styles - I like clean sentences and clarity and she likes flowery expressions; apart from that we both drift into academic speak all the time. But the main difference is I insist on good old Anglo-saxon words and she manages to sneak in Latin and Greek. Battle of the origins I call it...but today there should be less battling and more production. As her partner said: 'Get it done, don't get it right.'.

Tomorrow I'll be colouring eggs - I am culturally Eastern Orthodox after all - although otherwise a self-confessed agnostic who wishes she were able to believe.

Have a good day and may the frog eating continue.

Firewalker

Triciaxx

Firewalker wrote: »

I feel that I have hit on something here. This is a very important and tricky distinction – in fact this is probably the next stage of frog eating. First is: eat your frog first thing in the morning and start with the biggest and ugliest. The second stage is to identify your frogs and classify them according to how important they are in getting you where you want to be and how ugly they are (or how long have you delaying the eating). In other words, one has to learn to identify the productive from unproductive effort.

Confusion seeps in because productive effort is not only the effort that immediately delivers the goods; there is a productive chain. In my case, productive effort is not only generating text, but also reading, researching, experimenting with style. Productive effort is sending a letter to establish or renew a contact that can be useful in marketing. Productive effort is invoicing on time; chasing expenses etc.

Mmmm...needs further thought and figuring out or not?

Firewalker

I agree with you and also would suggest that there is a psychological effect caused by frogs of any dimension or urgency - an overload of frogs can be like a houseful of clutter.

I'm dealing with this myself at the moment with paperwork. I've always been pretty organised but circumstances conspired against me a few years ago and I was physically unable to get to my files. Once I could get to them, I was just plain daunted by the task and it has sat ribetting away at my concentration. Now I am nibbling frog toes each day on a FlyLady basis - 15 minutes + any new papers. It is stopping the frogs jumping all over my peace of mind.

Perhaps that's one classification of frog?

elantan

Am slowly catching up fw ..... Would just like to say ( cause its currently relevant to the bit im on ) im really enjoying your blog .... It isnt grating on my nerves even slightly ( like some of the U.S ones )

Im loving the way you are breaking everything down into easy stages, doing the tasks yourself and explaining your results

Its a very interesting blog u have .... I often think u and a few others would be a huge benefit for the van gogh experiment

Keep posting fw

Aesop

what's the Van Gogh experiment elantan?

Firewalker

Thanks, El - nice to hear because for now I have had several meaningful posts at the begining and after that posts from bots sent for links.

And what is the van gogh experiment?

Firewalker

williamD1964

Still confused about the frogs...