Of Shin Splints and Time Management

It's 6:09a.m. and I would normally be nine minutes into the second hour of my morning walk. But because of a nasty shin splint I am instead here in my silent living room at the keyboard of my iBook. Sometimes a pesky problem in one area of our lives leads to a nifty solution in another.

I have been quite bothered by not finding time to blog for almost three weeks now. And, in general, I have of late been wrestling afresh with the seemingly eternal issue of Time Management. Enter the shin splint. It came on--for no apparent reason--one week ago. At first I continued my two-hour walks, but the pain soon curtailed that. This morning it was a bit better, but forty-five minutes into my walk, my very unhappy right shin told me, "that's enough!" That's when it occurred to me that I could--I should--use the remaining hour to get back to the blogging I'd been so missing. It also occurred to me that perhaps, now that I'd reached my weight-loss goal, I might cut my walking routine from down from two hours to one. One Time-Management issue solved, others yet to be managed.

The other related issue I came to a new approach about was how I so often am hesitant to even begin a project--like writing a blog post--if I do not have a big block of time in which do do a really good/thorough job of it. For me, with writing, that usually means a solid two hours. I have now decided to try and get over that attitude and instead re-train my hyper-critical inner-editor to loosen up and accept smaller slices of time and (gulp) sloppier writing. I know he'll just hate both of these things, but if he can't make this transition, well, he'll just have to understand that he can be replaced.

What does this mean for you, my loyal readers? [Imagining one has readers is a helpful motivational mental tool] It means that you will see some much shorter and more 'rough-drafty' posts. As I mentioned in another post, this blog has, amoeba-like, divided into two blogs: this one, Random Acts of Intelligence, which will deal with my personal take on life issues and popular culture; and my other blog, The Plumbline http://plumblinepress.blogspot.com/ which will feature more crafted articles dealing with theological issues, especially truth claims and relativism.

Well, there you have it--had it not been for a nasty little shin-splint, you would not have had this post to waste your--er--um, I mean, to pleasantly fill a few minutes of your precious time. You're done now so you'd better hurry up now and get back to managing your time!

Bye for now... --Allen