Squirrels, ducks, plates and balls

Juggling balls and spinning plates: those are the two most commonly heard cliches when it comes to being busy.  I saw a better one being shared as a meme on Facebook the other day: "I do not have ducks and they are not in a row.  I have squirrels, and they are at a rave."

Personally, it feels more like juggling eggs than juggling balls for me, because of the likelihood that when I drop one, it will just go splat.  Like now, for example: I'm typing a blog post on the day that it was supposed to be published.  I suppose that's the equivalent of kicking the dropped ball back up with my foot and attempting to catch it in the air again.

Maybe I'm juggling the squirrels.

Seriously, how do you keep your ducks or balls or whatever small critters you have, in more or less tidy order?  Lately I've been using a to-do list with four different sections: long-term projects (my novel and book plans) medium term projects (commissioned scripts or books) short term projects (commissioned articles, blogs and one-off work such as preparing for a storytelling gig) and regular projects (this blog, for example, and other things that come up weekly or monthly).

Looks like time for a new to do list!

The sections are neatly colour-coded and the idea is that I spend the morning getting some of the shorter-term things out of the way, and the afternoon focusing on a long or medium term project.

In reality, I spend the morning e-mailing and doing admin and putting out domestic fires.  Not literal ones.  Sometimes literal ones.

Then I spend the afternoon shuffling between the morning's work, the afternoon's work and some housework.

Every now and then, I get to cross something off, which I enjoy.

And every now and then, I end up writing a blog on the day when it should have been published.

Sorry.

Amy is a writer, performance storyteller and ventriloquist, and the ACW publicity officer.  She has written three books about puppetry and storytelling, published by Kevin Mayhew, and provides scripts and materials for GenR8, a Cambridgeshire charity running Christian assemblies and events in schools. She does not have her ducks in the air, or her plates in a row, or any spinning balls. Or eggs.