I feel as if I am moving through molasses. Simple day to day tasks require an inordinate amount of time. Even the simplest undertaking will turn into a full day of frustrating work. A case in point – I had a letter from the condo association which required a response.

This meant I needed to draft a letter of explanation. First, I had to locate the original condo association letter to ensure I knew what was required of me. Locating a physical object is a huge time consuming event, something which takes up hours and hours of my day. I knew I had seen the letter. I knew I had read it. I had no idea where I placed it once I had read it. So I had to search.

After going through all the possible downstairs locations, I searched all the possible upstairs locations. Not finding it, I then commenced to search the impossible locations. The bedroom? The bathtub? Why not? Anything and everything is a possibility. Sending me a physical object means I will walk around carrying that physical object until such time as my mind turns its attention to a new task. The physical object is than placed on the nearest flat surface. And it is then forgotten. This necessitates a full search when the physical object is again required. Endless hours are wasted.

The letter was finally found in the downstairs entrance hall. This discovery was followed by creation of a draft text. It is the practice of the condo association to request a series of post-dated cheques to cover the monthly condo fees. It is my memory that when I submitted this series of cheques in March of 2015, that I ran out of cheques and was unable to provide the last two cheques in the series. At least I think this was the case. My accounting record shows I provided a full series of cheques. But that may be an error. I have no way of knowing what is correct. I do know that if the payment is late I will be charged some massive surcharge which I cannot afford. On the principle that it is better to be safe than sorry, I have decided to include the final two cheques with my letter of response.

In March I ran out of cheques. Two months ago, in October, I finally remembered to order a new supply of cheques from the bank. They arrived. I put them somewhere. I now began a search for the cheques. The first place I searched was the bathtub, followed by under the bed, and then in the downstairs entrance hallway. This search activity was based on the presumption that given the way I operate, the least likely possible place was the most likely final location of the missing physical item.

Hours later . . .

The cheques having been found, I now needed to determine the payee information and also the cheque amount. I cannot trust my memory of these things. So I now needed to undertake a second search to confirm the actual amount payable, and the correct legal name of the payee.

A set of tasks that would have taken the normal, pre-injury, me no longer than 15 minutes to complete turned into an endless succession of challenges to the new me. This is the key reason I am so reluctant to abandon the TAQ work process. Once I move from the project undertaking, I will end up in the weeds, endlessly spinning my wheels, and getting absolutely nowhere.

Having expended all of this effort on a tedious and frustrating set of adventures, I have decided to turn the entire escapade into a blog post. This saves me some time as it kills two stones with one bird. Or something like that.

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Writing out this post resulted in two realizations.

First, there is incredible value in being able to stand back and learn to laugh at my own foibles. If I do not do this then I become locked up in a state of frustration and nothing goes correctly after that.

Second, I know there was a second topic I wanted to enter here. I have forgotten what it is.

Third, I believe the above forgotten item had to do with my degree of involvement in the blog and in other computer based operations. With the computer there is less opportunity to misplace things. I have a directory structure that I have been using since back in the days of DOS 2.1. That is over 20 years ago [correction. DOS 2.1 was issued in 1983. That is 32 years ago]. On the computer everything is within reach, everything is in one location, everything is immediately accessible. And if something should go missing, there exist multiple search tools to help in locating the missing item. They work very well. I use them a lot. I wished they had real world equivalents.

Fourth, I suspect my ability to get “in the groove” also plays a role. It becomes possible for me to inhabit a functional space within which I feel competent. When I exit this computer based domain and confront the physical world, I face a forced encounter with my debilitated post-injury self. On the computer everything is easy. Real world operations are difficult. I have therefore developed a strong computer orientation. At its heart, this is an issue of self-efficacy.