Bob Haase’s Another Can Of Worms

Planning for a Shorter Summer

It seems like the summers are getting shorter.  I don’t know if it is because I am getting older and the time seems to be going faster or because the weather makes us feel like we have nine months of winter with no spring or fall.  These last two winters have been brutal to the point where my wife and I think that going south for three months is beginning to make a lot more sense.

In either case, it does seem like the summers are getting a lot shorter and it might make sense to do a little better planning for the short time we seem to have.  When we complain about the cold snowy winter it still takes a long time to reach summer.  When we complain about the hot weather in July and August it takes no time at all and we are blowing snow.  When the snow starts flying I always think about all the things I planned to do during the summer that didn’t get done.

I have found that making a list of things that we want to accomplish and prioritizing them helps us accomplish a whole lot more in the time we have.  Even on a day to day basis I try to make a list of things that I want to accomplish that day.  Planning and prioritizing will not make the summer any longer, but we might accomplish more of the things we want to do.  My wife will make a list of the things she wants to do and I will make a list of the things I want to do.  We will then sit down, discuss  them, make a few compromises, and see how many things we can accomplish.

Planning like this should not be work so try to make it fun.  Don’t try to accomplish so much that it becomes work.  Life is too short for that so make sure some of the things you want to accomplish are fun activities.  We all have things we want to accomplish in life and with some planning we might be able to accomplish a few of them this summer. 

Make a list of the things you want to accomplish next week.  Look at the list every morning and decide what you want to accomplish that day and cross off the things you already accomplished.  At the end of the week look over the list and see how much more you accomplished because of list and planning you did.  Reward yourself by doing something fun!  Now think about how much more you accomplished that week and think about how much more you can accomplish this summer by doing the same kind of planning.

Bob Haase is the host of “Outdoors Thursday” heard Thursday mornings at 9:10 a.m. on News-Talk 1450 KFIZ.