But that's not a good excuse. A better excuse is that the little dog we've been watching has been taking up a ton of my time. I'm completely unable to build momentum when I have to keep taking breaks to walk her. I enjoy the dog's company, so I'm willing to work with her on this. What I need is a better sense of time management.

The Shakespeare challenge is proving to take up a ton of my time. It doesn't take long to read a single play when I can sit down and enjoy it, but when I have other things going on, it's nearly impossible to read at a quick enough pace to get anything else done during the day. I'm not a quick reader, so it's discouraging at times.

What I really need is a vacation. Labor Day wasn't enough. It was necessary, but insufficient. More than anything, I need to have a project to completely dive into again; it's my best source of energy.

Unfortunately, I'm once again cluttering up my life with too many goals, projects, and other things. I can't focus on one or two things, and it's leaving me without the ability to focus on anything with the singular focus I need to excel at it. When this happens to me, everything feels like a chore - even things I normally love to do.

Labor Day was fine, but if a 3 day weekend doesn't feel like a treat and instead feels like I just came up for air for a second, I know something's wrong. It's time to get serious about refocusing everything in my life.