I thought being no longer in the paid work force meant I would have oodles of time to do lots of “extra” things. But now that I don’t have the pressure of time, I am far more easily distracted and end up down side-alleys because I now have “plenty of time”.

A case in point from this morning.  I went to Ikea to buy a sink to put in our new kitchen when it finally gets renovated. I budgeted an hour for this – enough time to drive to the big shop, get the sink and drive home again.  Instead of which, I remembered that my adult son’s birthday is this Saturday.  And I have no idea what on earth to get him.

So I end up wandering around Ikea – instead of going straight to the targeted “sinks” section – looking and hoping for inspiration to strike me. And I end up finding a couple of silly things for him.

Then when I do finally end up in the sink section of Ikea, I can no longer make up my mind which sink I would like.  Because a sink is such a “final” purchase. You can’t easily change your mind with your selection once it’s installed. So I leave Ikea with two silly birthday presents and no sink!  Philip has a day off tomorrow so I think I’ll ask him to help me make the sink selection. But it all took more than double the time I’d allocated! Just as well it doesn’t really matter in the long run!