Borrowing Time

Checking out a spot for a photo shoot of all the gear for the expedition

Less than a month before the start of the Kayak For Safe Passage Kids expedition, and there's still so much left to do.  How can I get everything done?
I have a schedule worked out, but on so many days not everything gets done.  So then I borrow time from the next day to finish.  On Saturday, Chris and I scouted spots in Belfast for a photo shoot of the expedition gear.  Front Street Shipyard gave us permission to use one of their docks, with a great view of the harbor.  We planned to do the shoot on Sunday, but it was too windy, so we postponed to Monday.  Borrow the time.

Today I worked on the task from Saturday weighing all of the gear, clothing and food, and finding out it is way too heavy - 216 pounds including the kayak.  I need to reduce the weight, but will I also need to reduce the volume?  To find out, I tried loading it all into the kayak.  There were six big IKEA bags filled with gear, lined up beside the kayak, as well as a pile of paddles and a kayak cart.  I was amazed to find it all fits!  How is it that the gear barely fits inside my car, yet fits in the kayak?  While it does fit, I still need to reduce the weight.  By not taking everything for every season, I can easily reduce the weight by 12 pounds.  Now I need to make further reductions.  I'll add yet another task to my list of what needs to be done, and borrow some more time.

As the launch date gets closer, the time pressure mounts, which makes me think of the families living around the garbage dump.  There was an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times on Saturday "No Money, No Time".  It talks about research on poverty: poverty of money, which leads to poverty of time, which leads to poverty of cognitive and emotional bandwidth.  The results show that dealing with poverty of money and then time, results in making decisions based on the moment, rather than on the longer term.  Such decisions are usually not the best in the long run, and the cycle of poverty persists.  My small concerns about not having enough time to get everything done are nothing in comparison.