Time management....

Financial advisors often suggest that people should not treat "found money" differently from regular income - just because you won money, or got an unexpected tax refund or worked overtime, you shouldn't spend that money just because it's "extra", but should be just as prudent with it as you would with your normal income.

But what about found time? It seems to work the same way - if I have time that I wasn't expecting to have, I tend to waste it even more than I do normally.

Case in point - I've had two days off in the last two weeks. Last Monday was planned - I took the day off because my cat needed to get spayed, and I figured I could also get some stuff done. And I did. I was up at 7am, dropped off the cat, picked up breakfast at Chick-fil-a (I had a coupon), went to Target, Home Depot, and my credit union, put together a giant and complicated piece of furniture, moved a TV, hung a picture and a coatrack, wrote some ebay descriptions, and probably did some other stuff I don't remember.

On the other hand, this Friday I was also off, but I wasn't expected to be. It was a snow day, thanks to overly cautious college administrators who decided to close school because of a light rain. I didn't get nearly as much stuff done, mostly because I woke up, checked my email on my smartphone, saw that school was closed, and went back to sleep until 11 or so. I then sat around in my pajamas for a couple hours surfing the web, and otherwise did a whole lot of nothing. I did sort through some of the stuff from last week's RTT auction, but other than that I got very little done, and I'm guessing it's because I kind of felt that I didn't need to - unlike last week, I didn't have a plan and a list of things to get done, so I didn't get much done.

Part of me is disappointed in myself - I could have cleaned the house, gotten my eBay shit in order, cured cancer, and otherwise been productive. On the other hand, sometimes it's nice to do nothing, to catch up on sleep, to watch Ace of Cakes reruns off the DVR while the cat sleeps in my lap.