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OK,
that was bad.
I was out sick for the past week. Not your "I feel a little cold coming on, I'm going to take it easy today," but more like "I know I should drink water, but I'm too weak to crawl." Fever of 104+ degrees Fahrenheit (gotta love US units), body wracked by coughing, etc. In other words, just the flu.
Answers.com says it well:
An acute contagious viral infection characterized by inflammation of the respiratory tract and by fever, chills, muscular pain, and prostration.
Prostration - quite right.
Interesting facts about being sick:
- It's just like taking sick leave when you're employed, but without the pay.
- Be prepared to become seriously depressed once you do feel better. This was unexpected, and unwelcome.
- Tracking your actions on a master list GTD-style, instead of scheduling every single one, is great when you're sick. Instead of pushing a ton of them back a week or two, I just had to contact those people on my calendar to reschedule.
- Every day I was sick I had anxiety about two pressing projects I had promised to get out. I was finally able to convince myself it was better to be late with them (letting people know, of course), than to kill myself trying to work on them, making mistakes, and generally doing myself and my clients a disservice.
- I continued to capture thoughts, ideas, and (more likely) rabid ramblings via my trusty bed-side pad of paper and pen. Those notes are in the Smithsonian now, so I'm glad I did!
- I missed my exercise! I do 30 minutes a day, 7 days a week, and being out for a week was nasty. Probably contributed to the depression.
- Getting out of the routine - it's hard to get back into the swing. I'm doing exercise, and I'm using the "at least one significant action a day" approach to ensure I am productive again. Even a little thing like rescheduling all my canceled appointments is good.
- People didn't mind my canceling their appointments, esp. when I explained I did not want to get them sick. Funny, that.
Anyway, next up: My long-delayed second part on
Productivity for Programmers, following Bob Walsh's great
Productivity for Programmers, #1: Trusted Systems, the first in our series on the topic.
Stay well!
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