Accelerating The Speed of Tasks

Todays weather: High=24 Low=15
Sunny

What should have been a relaxing summer vacation 'back home' is now turning into a stress-filled disaster. At this point now, unfortunately, I have little choice but to accelerate what needs to be done here and change my flight to get back to Shanghai at an earlier time. That is, if it's possible. Will find out more information this week on how to accelerate tasks as fast as I can, and change my flight at the earliest opportunity.

This also means I'm going to cancel a planned bike trip in my home province as part of the summer break. The way things have been going this far, frankly, why even bother.

A good rule of thumb, speaking for myself, is to avoid any stressful activities or getting into intense discussions while under the influence of jet lag. It should be a case of rest first, wait a week to recover, and then start getting into action

Regretably, I fouled this one up big time and made some really stupid mistakes by getting into a heated conversation. Part of the problem is that the people I'm talking to are all the type-A sort who have no idea what jet lag is about, the extent of my experiences abroad, and the necessity of taking a breather. These are the kind of people who plan things to the hilt, expect others to be organized, etc. etc. The concept of flexibility, or figuring things out as you go along is unknown to the type-A personality sort. There are no shortage of these kind of people in my home country.

Nonetheless, it is foolish to hit the ground running instantly and on a summer vacation at that. But when everyone expects you to function ”normally” (in the sense of being a workaholic) right after getting off the plane and as if your experiences overseas never happened, then it makes for a severe case of unnecessary stress and re-entry shock. Once that starts kicking in, I then ignore my own advice and plunge into tasks too quickly, and then also say things in conversations that I wish could be deleted.

That's more or less why I've consistently advocated the idea of a gradual flight process 'back home' over multiple stops, as opposed to doing the whole thing in one slog. Failing the opportunity to break up the journey, then there should be at least a one week self-imposed `quarantine` period of rest and relaxation on arrival in order to get over the jet lag first.

It sounds silly to even mention this but there are more people than you might realize who have no idea of these concept, and who would expect an overseas returnee to just get off the plane and swing back into a "normal" life, vacation be damned.

Nonetheless the damage has already been done, as it were, and I'm now looking to change my flight earlier. But there are some drivers license and other tasks that are important and now it looks like, due to my mistakes, I will need to accelerate those tasks and get them done ASAP. Once back in Shanghai, I will then continue the vacation with the extra time over there.

Meanwhile, I have also learned more than I wanted to about the details of non-residency and taxation issues as they would apply to an expat. This was the source of the heated conversation as mentioned above, and has now got me interested in doing research on just how the taxation issues apply to people living abroad. You can expect a lot more posts on this, in detail, after the next several months once I become more familiar with how the process works.