Grass is greener syndrome

What is it about human beings that causes us to always want what we don't have? I know that our striving for more and seeking improvement is what has caused us, as a species, to do so well. But it doesn't lead to a relaxing life

Specifics - I'm the mother of a two year old, and I also have a part-time job. When I was first thinking about it, this seemed to me the ideal situation. And in general, it does seem pretty good. But now that some of my friends with kids are starting to go back to work full-time, I sometimes run out of friends with kids, for playdates and excursions. And then I start thinking - well, maybe I should just go back to work full-time. At least Kenny would then have playmates there.

So, the grass continually looks a little greener on the other side of the fence.

My latest productivity enhancement - dump the junk!

I was getting annoyed with myself recently at how little I've been getting done. Tasks seemed to have an eternal life on my To Do list, irritating me each time I looked at them.

What was stopping me from getting things done? It wasn't my 2 year old - I had time in the evening after he had gone to bed. It was the fact that my time was taken up in doing so many other activities. Just like good food is crowded out by junk food, productive time can be crowded out by "junk time". I define junk time for myself as web surfing, TV, and reading. Reading is tricky, because obviously, certain types of reading can be great.

My plan (in effect a whole 2 days now) is to BAN all the life-energy sucking activities mentioned above - web surfing, TV, and reading. I've gotten so much done in the past couple days! Things that had been dragging me down for weeks - I got them done, because I had nothing else to do!

Is this a sustainable system? Probably not. I've built in some exceptions (Friday night movies, etc) but I still don't see this lasting forever. I'll learn something from it, though, which will be great.