Quadrant IV

Yesterday I did something I’d been meaning to do for a very long time.  I sat down at my computer with a cup of tea and slowly worked through thousands of emails.

I’d be loathe to go through my emails of late, as the document management system we use at work is labourous when saving emails and it can sometimes be difficult to know when a particular conversation is completed and the thread can be saved.  But yesterday I was sick of seeing so many emails in my inbox and not knowing what I had yet to do so I just worked my way through.

I now have no emails in my inbox; 7 in my ‘to be done’ folder and about 12 in my ‘waiting on’ folder.

Now feeling very pleased with myself.

I live in the Southern hemisphere and as such I’m experiencing what we consider to be the depths of winter.  And as with all things wintery, pretty much everyone I know has come down with a cold or the ‘flu in the last couple of weeks.

I’ve been sick now for about a week and I’m not enjoying it one little bit, but it has given me some useful ‘down’ time at home which I’ve put to good use to get some irritating but essential little jobs done.

There are a number of things you can do to stay productive while you are laid up sick and coughing:

1. Sort out your digital photograhs

I took the opportunity to sort out around 3000 digital photographs over the past week.  These have been photographs people have given me (mostly of family functions) or photos that I have taken and never quite got around to sorting out.  I’ve managed to put them all into categories and uploaded a heap of them to our backup server or online.  I’m feeling pretty good about this one as it has been on my todo list for a number of months.

2. Put some unwanted items on Ebay

This is another nice, quiet activity that doesn’t really require much more than a laptop and internet connection, and can be done from bed.  I’d already taken the photographs of the items I wanted to sell (and sorted them out during number 1) so I had no excuse but laziness for not getting them sold.  I managed to get half of my list of items on Ebay and sold before I got tired of this one.

3. Online Christmas Shopping

This one may not be so good for those to whom impulse buying is a problem, or those who may not be thinking properly, but for the runny nose/coughing group, getting some shopping done online is great.  I managed to make a list and get a number of things either purchased or into wishlists for both my own purchases and those all important ‘send me a list of what you want’ requests from my family.

4. Write letters to people

I love writing letters.  And I love receiving them.  But it seems that I just never have enough time to get all the letters done that I want to write.  So I used my quiet time to get a heap of handwritten letters done to my loved ones and then got someone to post them.

5. Maintain websites and write some blog posts

Yeah, this one is probably cheating, but I did spend some time lying on the couch with my laptop updating plugins, cleaning up html, reloading information and typing posts for my blogs.  Great stuff that is important and I never seem to find the time for.

So this is my list of what I achieved while I was sick this past week.  I’d love to hear other thoughts of what can be accomplished to keep productive while sick.

In a fit of household organisation the other day, my husband and I struck a deal regarding chores.  He is going to do all of the cleaning, and I’m going to be in charge of all of the food.  This is a bit of a change for us as in the past it has been the other way around.

Finding myself in charge of organising all the food required for the week, and making sure I have enough time to shop and cook has required me to revisit some old processes.

Before I was married, I was a bit of a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ kinda girl and didn’t really plan food too carefully.  Now, with my new system, everything is planned and organised (or getting there.)

So how do I do it?

Read the rest of this entry »