One thing working all three days of a three-day weekend taught me was that pacing is everything. I found a kind of rhythm to the days that worked well for me. I got through everything I planned to do this weekend (work-wise, at least) by doing it my way. That means sleeping as late as I felt comfortable doing, taking breaks when I started to get bleary-eyed, or when my back began to tighten up, or whenever I felt like it, and keeping my eye on the goal, to the extent that I allowed myself to be satisfied as long as I was making good progress.

The breaks I took over the weekend were mostly reading breaks, although I did spend some time watching English football (do you know Aston Villa beat Chelsea?) and Australian football. (One of those sports is what we in the U.S. call soccer, and neither is what we call football.) Oh, and some baseball and NASCAR, too. But mostly reading. I got through most of the latest Janet Evanovich and James Patterson books, in the breaks I took from doing numerous voluminous cost reports.

Those aren’t necessarily the kinds of books I ordinarily read, by the way. But they were both sent to me because I forgot to cancel an automatic shipment from the book club. They were also both fast reads, so they sort of fit into the rhythm of a working weekend.

Anyway, I finished the cost reports at about 4:00 pm yesterday, but I waited until around 7:00 pm to fax them to the Boss. Why? So that he wouldn’t start going over them and coming up with nitpicky questions and faxing them back, demanding answers. I waited until I figured he was on his second beer. Trouble is, he gets up way before I do in the morning, and by the time I was sitting at my desk today, the fax tray was already loaded with nitpicky questions. I called and told him I was going to spend all day today doing payroll, and I’d get to his nitpicking tomorrow. Only I didn’t call it that.

Today while I was doing payroll, I tried to employ the techniques I’d used over the weekend. The payroll comes in two parts. The first is sitting at the computer for several hours, getting a backache. The second is sitting at the desk writing checks for hours, getting cramps in my wrist and fingers. Taking breaks to read (mostly, because there weren’t any games today) helped me get through it. I didn’t get through it until after 10:00 tonight, but I got through it at a pace I was comfortable with. So you see, you can teach an old dog who thinks he already knows everything.