I suppose this is a fairly inauspicious first post to a new blog, but whatever—it’s what’s going on right now, and I don’t have a better place to put this sort of thing.

Today, or rather, lately, I’m fighting a war with myself on several fronts. I have personal projects I want to work on, household chores and responsibilities, and the financial necessity of holding down a paying gig. The things I want to do won’t pay the bills (at least not near-term), and between job and family, I don’t have time to push those projects forward enough to even approach the point of making money off of them.

And even if/when I become a full-time stay-at-home dad, there’ll be a ten-fold increase in my domestic responsibilities (at least), leaving no more time than I currently have for pushing personal projects uphill.

So, I feel like I’m doing a lot of stuff, but doing nothing well, and like no matter what choice I make, the things I have to do will never leave more room for the things I simply want to do. And more than that, I’m not even certain that I’ll accomplish anything meaningful with those personal projects if I do get the time to work on them.

I was nearly paralyzed today during a two-hour lull when the baby was asleep and I forced myself not to do any housework. I couldn’t decide which of fifteen different minor or major projects I should spend time on, since I could be interrupted by the baby at any time. In the end, my frustration and paralysis led to the creation of an entirely new project… so… yeah, that was real productive and positive.

Seems to be the only thing I can do at this point is… hope that it gets better?

I’m taking steps. I’ve decided on taking a digital sabbatical from social media in January. But I’ve also got to get better at making incremental progress on important projects during those little five or ten minute lulls during a day that I normally would have filled with facebook or twitter or something.

Whether it’s reading, writing, editing, or recording something, working on photography stuff, playing a video game (something I keep meaning to do, but never have time for), whatever; I have to train myself to take advantage of those tiny slivers of time that otherwise seem to just get swallowed up by everything else.

It has to be possible. I see people every day who appear superhuman, who seem to get stuff done in a day that I could never hope to manage. There are successful writers who seem able to drag their three kids to fifteen different extracurricular activities during the week, and whose spouses don’t have to constantly remind them to change the cat litter. And yet there are days when I feel it’s a major accomplishment to open the front door of the house, or even to step into the garage.

I have to admit I’m a little lost. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just hope that I figure it out at least a little bit, soon. And I hope that when I do figure it out, and do manage to get something done, that it doesn’t just totally suck. I mean, that’s not too much to ask, right?