I think too much.  Just like the Paul Simon song – “Maybe I Think Too Much”.  There are times when I can not control the direction my thoughts will take.

When I have things to get done, I have to build a careful plan.  I need to consider every aspect of what I need to do, and set priorities for each thing.  This helps me get thru tasks without having to rethink them too much.

So I have a sort of outline for the day – when to think about what.  I can put off thinking about something, if I schedule when to think about it, and I already know the basics.  It works pretty well for me usually.  (“when” means in what order, not what time).

If I do not plan, and control where my thoughts go, and when, then my brain runs rampant, and I can not control where it goes.  All other considerations get pushed aside.  I get stuck in a loop of over thinking.

So this plan works… some of the time.

The problem comes when something upsets the “plan”.  It can be any of a number of things (yes… zero is a number, but I mean a bigger number).  Once that happens, everything falls apart, and the planning has to start from scratch.  And that usually means planning on the fly, which is almost always doomed to failure.

Last second planning takes on a life of it’s own.  My mind becomes swamped with some new direction of thought.  And I can not control where it will go.  But for sure, the old plan is dead.

This is how things I really want to do, don’t get done.  Those things invariable fall to the end of whatever “list” I might have, and those things usually do not get done at all.  There will not be enough energy to fill in for that planning by late in the day.

Sometimes the upheaval is so strong that I end up getting nothing done, because the planning stage burns me out, and I shut down.  This happens a lot!!

This is where most of my least productive days come from.  One small event, and the whole thing – water, tub, and baby – all get thrown out, and I fail.

Sadly… this is one of the things I had been working on in session before it’s early demise.  I will slowly figure it out though – it actually is a lot better than it used to be.  Removing the grocery shopping has taken away a lot of my Stoppers.  That alone accounted for at least 2 lost days per week.

But I can not eliminate all the Stoppers, so I need to find a way to deal with them.  I will keep looking.