Scheduling Errands

I like running errands. It makes me feel as though I am using my spare minutes, and between working and parenting, there are not many of those, so when I can squeeze the necessary and the "just for fun" stops into my day, I feel as though I have accomplished something. If I've gotten milk, I can say that if I accomplish nothing else all day, at least I've gotten milk. If I can pick up some needed school items as soon as the office supply store opens in the morning, it's one less thing to worry about later. And if I head to work just early enough to hit the bank first, I'm not scrambling to figure out how to buy fruit or pay a babysitter later. For me, errands are less about doing chores and more about using spare minutes to make life work.
 
I discovered this morning that errands have an additional purpose. One of today's errands took me farther afield, out of my path, but well within my capability. As I walked to take care of it, I wondered whether it would make me late to work, or wiped out once I got there. As I relaxed into errand mode, however, I began to enjoy seeing an area I don't usually travel. I started to enjoy the extra walk and feel good about being able to accomplish just a little more. In the end, I was not late or wiped out (well, at least not until later). While the errand was a small one, I had accomplished it before my work day even started, so again, I had the feeling that if nothing else productive happened, at least I had that.
 
For most of the time I was working in soaps, the days started so early, I couldn't even imagine getting anything significant done before taking out my script and stopwatch. It was a schedule that I lived for years. If I had errand time, it was later in the day, too late for considering errands "under my belt" before the day started. Somehow, everything--or at least enough--got done.
 
These days, post-soaps, there are lots of pieces of adapting to a world of new work--new people, new challenges, new pay scales, new expectations. What I am realizing is that along with all of these comes new interpretation of time. If we are to succeed as jobs change, it will be by making the most of the time that we have, no matter when in our day that time falls. For me right now, that is in a long morning, but, work being what it is, that schedule could change at any moment. The errands will still get done (at least most of them). The challenge will be adapting them and the rest of life to changing schedules. But that's just how work is these days. 

So, if we are to buy that milk and get to the bank, it will be because we have adapted to new schedules, and have found new ways to schedule our errands. And, in the process, we will likely also find new ways to measure our daily accomplishments--milk, bank, work, or otherwise.