So, my attempting not to do too much thread crashed up against the insight I gained when I finally backed off far enough. Pulling focus, it's all time. My time is divided into functional (eating, sleeping, bathing, etc.) managing things (cleaning, moving, using, discarding...) and managing activities (errands, classes, job, exercise....). The value of each of these divisions can be assessed by what value (health, resources, pleasure) they add to my life vs. what cost (health, resources, pleasure) they exact.
so, ignoring the functional for now, I'm going to try to keep an eye on the other two categories, esp. Things.
things that come into my life to be managed every day:
milk
eggs
manure
dirty laundry
dirty dishes
general dirt in buildings
almost every day - snail mail.
i'm going to begin by moving those things toward their correct level, which today means using up/reducing at least the increase in every category (part of the year eggs and milk are a scarcity to be stretched)
i'm also going to track instances of increase in activities (new tasks/commitments) and things (obvious)