How do you handle busy weeks?

[Desperate4Discipline]

I am the president of the parent group at my daugher's school. I'm also active in the district as a whole. This time of year is crazy busy! So much so that the jobs around the house that D and I have established aren't getting done at all. Would those of you who are bottoms expect to be disciplined for this? And those of you who are tops, would you punish your bottom for not following the rules even though you know how busy they are?

D is still uncomfortable with TTWD and he actually asked me how we should handle this. Of course I would prefer for him to take the lead but I was really happy that he at had TTWD on his mind and was actually trying to figure it out.

[Meg]

That is kind of tricky, and I am not really sure what your arrangement with your husband is.

Here is what we do. Obsidian sets a daily schedule for me, based on the other things that are going on. I get disciplined for not following the schedule, not necessarily for not completing everything. There are exceptions to that (i.e., if I have created a crisis by not getting something done in a timely manner, etc.), but for the most part it is based on the schedule itself. If something comes up, i.e., I have hit a wall, and it is impossible for me to think or work anymore, I can ask permission to change the schedule, which may or may not be granted.

Speaking of schedules, Obsidian is about to give me mine, now....so, I better go!

[JigsawAnalogy]

In my case, it's usually less about how busy I am and more about how my health is doing. The rule right now is that I do as much as I'm able to do, when I'm able to do it, and there isn't a penalty for taking care of my body (which is to say, resting when I'm tired, and so forth).

When we had a more specific rule about chores, and when my health was a little more reliable, it was generally fine to change things so long as I checked with W before not doing something I'd previously agreed to do. So in my situation, if I talked with W about it, and she agreed that there wasn't time for doing everything on my plate, she'd make a decision about which things were more important, and which things could slide. If I just skipped doing something without talking about it ahead of time, unless there were a really good excuse, I'd probably get punished for not doing it.

[Lady Governess]

Personally, I handle them by spending more time on boards and other diversionary tactics until I finally shake myself and work like a train to get everything done. But that's not really helpful to you is it?

I guess you need to find a way of making a list of things to be done and then prioritising them so that you do the important things and leave the less important ones. A series of cue card? A whiteboard? Magnetic strips? Whatever works for you. I would tend to get a bottom to divide all the tasks into "Essential" and "NON Essential". Then I'd go through the list and adjust or approve it. Then at the end of the day or week it would be punishments for essential things not done and good girl treats for any non-essentials she managed after all.

Basically that's how it works at least. The complications are....complicated so I won't bore you with them. Suffice it to say if she thinks she's busy when she gives me her list she will be more even busy when I have finished approving it. Bottoms get into so much less trouble when they have things to do.

Not to mention the fact that I will usually help her out if she's falling behind. I'm not completely evil you know!

[Meg]

With all due respect to LG, to do lists can be major traps for me. I actually had to scrap my task list system altogether about a year ago, and it was the best thing I ever did. I still need to keep track of my tasks, but in a much different way.

My problem is that I get overwhelmed. I tend to be a big picture person, so if I see a long task list I will look at it, and look at it, and then think, "There is no way I can do this," and give up and do something a bit more fun. Having the threat of punishment doesn't help here, because if I think it is impossible, and I will get punished anyways, I figure I might as well enjoy myself, rather than work and work, and fail anyways. Also, anytime I would work on one thing I would be obsessing about all of the other things that weren't getting done. For example, if I was doing work-work, I would obsess about the messy house. If I was doing housework, I would obsess about the work-work. We won't even go to prioritizing the list. I could spend hours with complicated prioritizing, and then be so exhausted after that that I would still not do anything.

Can you tell I have some issues with procrastination and am a bit of a perfectionist?

So far, for me, schedules work the best. Even if I make a list, I put it on a schedule. This way during the time period that I am supposed to do housework, I know that this is my task. I can focus on that. If I start worrying about my work-work, I can stop myself, by thinking, that will be from 3-6, and get back to the task that I am scheduled for at the moment. You would be surprised how much can get done in an hour, when you are actually working one task at a time through that hour.

Of course, I am far from perfect with this, and in fact, Obsidian has just raised the penalty for my going off task during scheduled work times , because she found it obvious that the penalty was not a sufficient motivator.

[Lady Governess]

[Meg]

[Lady Governess]

Oh honey. Apologies are absolutely not necessary. I can see I am going to have to moderate everything I write to make things absolutely clear. I'm so sorry.

My last comment was said with the gleam in the eye that grandmas ave when they say silly things to their five year old granddaughters who want to eat cookie dough. That sort of "You really shouldn't do it but I'm not watching so do it quickly while I'm not watching" sort of gleam.

Or the one grandpas have when parents have said, "No candy" but grandpa has something very candy-like in his pocket and secretly passes it to the child.

You know the one, don't you?

GLEAM .....TWINKLE.....WINK.

xxx

[Meg]

[Lady Governess]

[JigsawAnalogy]

[Desperate4Discipline]

[W-Jigsaw'sBoss]

I actually heard something different from the original question.

What I heard was sort of twds the idea of leniency, and what a top should forgive and what a top should be completely non-negotiable on. During a busy week, what sort of flexibility should be given, especially when a top is struggling with learning how to be an authoritarian?

That's how I saw the original question.

I've learned that, within reason, stricter is better, as long as my expectations are reasonable. If you're unable to get all the tasks done, of course you want leniency, but I think the key is communication.

J used the example of when she's got tasks I have assigned, and she isn't physically capable of getting them done. We have a policy of texting or communicating in some way BEFORE she'd get "caught" not having done the task.

It always comes back to communication.