One thing I know about myself is that I am somewhat time-disorganized.
I have trouble getting things done without scrambling. I have never successfully implemented a routine. My morning schedule could be considered a routine, I guess, but it’s more “how little time can I use to get done what needs to be done in the morning?”
The result of being a night person with a morning person job. And a kid at an even earlier-start school than the one where I start my day.
What got me thinking about this (this time) is that I haven’t been writing here regularly … or anywhere else. Since I stopped blogging daily, I’ve stopped writing daily. Other things have taken over.
The typical solution is to make a schedule, and in theory, I could do that. But what I want to know, from the people who actually do this, is — how do you take into account things that come up?
For example: I have 4.5 hours today from the time my last class walks out until the time that The Climbing Daddy brings The Kid over for the evening. That’s a good chunk of time.
But in it, I’ll need to do a little bit of work for work (I rarely walk out the door with the kids), I’ll need to drive home, I’ll need to eat lunch.
Because the weekend was full with one-off things, I’ll need to plan dinners for the week and go grocery shopping. Then I’ll need to prep at least today’s dinner, because we have taekwondo at dinner prep time and will be eating close to 7 if it’s all prepped ahead of time.
(Yes, I could schedule a quick-to-make meal, but four out of five week nights have something during the dinner-prep time.)
That accounts for most if not all of that chunk of time.
Once The Kid gets home, there’s not enough time to do all the things I’d like to do with him, so there’s definitely no writing or anything-ing in that block.
Once he’s in bed, I’m working on making a habit of powering down devices, reading for a bit, chatting with The Climbing Daddy for a bit, and going to bed early enough that I don’t feel exhausted all the time. (Except this now reduces or eliminates text-chatting with friends, because “after the kids go to bed” is when we have time to connect.)
OK, so we could back up. Make sure you get the planning and shopping done over the weekend.
Great! But we had stuff going on over the weekend. We had people over Saturday night and needed to prep for that (and got some other chores done in the process that are not ever done on a consistent basis). Sunday, we moved the fish tank from our house to The Kid’s school then went straight to a brunch/play date with a few families from school. The Climbing Daddy and I left early (while The Kid and The Tall Daddy stayed to play more) to go to the Home Show to see if we could get any decent information about our yard from a landscaper. (The answer is no, we couldn’t.)
So which of those things do we skip so that we can get the meal planning and shopping done?
Other things that happen in the afternoons include other errands, appointments (there’s been physical therapy in there twice a week for a while), occasional coffee dates, getting work for work done (Friday, for example, I worked two hours past my last class). Some days exercise needs to happen in that window if it’s going to happen at all. I am still squeezing in photography stuff occasionally (though you might have noticed there were no photos this week—haven’t done anything since last weekend).
So, if you’re one of those people who has a routine and sticks to it easily: how? How do you accommodate the incidental stuff? I could make a schedule and stick to it on the days that I can stick to it, but looking at this week’s calendar, that would be … hang on, checking the calendar … no days. There are no days this week that there’s nothing in that window. (Today is the only day there’s nothing actually scheduled, and shopping and eating well is important, so that time goes to meal-ing first.) None of the things are always happening. And they’re not at the same time, or for the same duration.
I wonder if there are people who work and have kids and have hobbies or side hustles and have social lives and exercise regularly and prepare most of their food at home get it done in a relatively structured manner.
I’m definitely not one of them!
(When I was writing regularly, writing time was all over the place. And I didn’t actually write every day, but there were some days—usually Sundays—where I would write for a long time and then short days just edit. But since the WordPress app has stopped working in a useful way, I have to be at my computer to write/edit/publish, which makes writing here happen less.)
So… where are you on this continuum?
