I’m one of those people who makes to-do lists. At my current advanced age I have found that I have quite a large number of these lists and a large number of items piling up.
A year ago it got to the point where I put all of my intended tasks on an Open Office spreadsheet, with ten data fields describing every chore. That way I could organize my schedule according to the priority of the task, the resources I would need to complete it, and the amount of time I estimated it would take to complete.
The original list had 86 items, and now there are only 12 of those original items left. All of which are long-term, time-intensive projects that I’ve wanted to complete, but haven’t really wanted to start.
As it is with lists, they tend to grow at about the same rate as they shrink. Over the course of the year I finished 854 tasks for a total of 52,000 minutes or 36 days of work time.
In the major categories of tasks, I spent 333 hours doing normal household chores, like laundry, cleaning, shopping, or returning library books. 58 hours were spent doing odd projects like fixing electrical appliances or building beer-cooling devices.
On the more professional end of things, I spent roughly 191 hours sitting at the computer and actually writing. Another 316 hours were spent in various pursuits intended to facilitate my writing career. Things like editing Space Squid, critiquing other people’s work, podcasting, and updating webpages. Oddly enough, writing this blog wasn’t routinely included on the list because I enjoy it so much I don’t have to remind myself to do it.
Combining the statistics from the list with my 2009 tax returns, I have concluded that writing fiction pays me about 1 cent an hour.
I’m still not certain if the list is a useful organizational tool or the symptom of a much larger problem.
