Productivity in Bursts

Typically, there is a lot of waiting around during experiments so that I have time to read news, check the stock market, catch up on sports news, post here, etc. That was not the case during the first couple of days this week in the lab. I had another scheduled trip out to KU Tuesday, so Monday was all the prep work. There was enough to do that kept me on my feet the entire day, so productivity at work was not a problem. What I didn't expect, was for productivity to carry over into the evening. Now I have a stocked pantry (after a lengthy trip to the grocery store) and all of my books/DVDs unpacked and roughly organized. I dreaded making the first trip to the grocery store and I put it off as long as I could. It became a necessity when I was nominated to bring the dessert to the Thanksgiving dinner. For those of you wondering, I'm making my famous chocolate banana pie (I am choosing to refer to it as famous, only because it was requested by someone else, but I think that still counts. It is my favorite pie, so I don't need much of a reason to justify preparing it).

Sometimes I manage to impress myself with how much I am capable of getting done in one day. The ten hours in the lab completed nearly two entire days of work for a mere mortal. But then followed by dinner with the folks, grocery shopping and unpacking boxes. The boxes were somewhat of an afterthought - I had fallen asleep on the couch watching TV. The transition to sleeping in a bed didn't go as smoothly as anticipated, so I figured I should do something. All those boxes were already in the bedroom, why not start unloading them? Anyway, an hour later and I've got books and DVDs on the shelves and huge stack of empty boxes on the other side of the room - success!

Unfortunately, productive days, like this one, seem rather rare. I always get something done in any given day, but not like this. If every day was half as productive as this, I would be completely set at work, but also probably be half way into my grave. Productive bursts are nice when they happen, it would just be nice to transition into them without having to force motivation or be so stressed because of the mountain of tasks to complete. Maybe I enjoy being lazy a little too much. How can I call myself lazy after working "the streak"? It doesn't mean that those days were all productive - just look at my lab book - oh wait, it's way, way behind. I'm hoping for one productive burst to clean that and my lab bench up, then put away the rest of the stuff in the apartment, get my address changed on all of my bills, driver's license updated, take care of insurance stuff, banking, bills or any of the other hundred things that I need to finish/work on - oh yeah, some form of exercise would be nice also.