Pretty good day yesterday. My hair is almost tamed again, and no longer hanging in my eyes, my hairdresser was pretty astonished that it had grown so long but that’s what happens when your last visit to her was in July. My hair is now the longest it’s been ever since I turned twenty. And I still want to grow it a bit longer. If I don’t like it I can always chop it off again.
I also managed to get a rubber ring for the coffee maker. We’re using those Italian ones that you put on the stove top. The boy started drinking coffee again last week, and now we need two on some weekdays.
The rest of the day I taught students and did all kinds of things in between. I practiced, and I answered emails, and wrapped Christmas presents, and forced the boy to practice piano (which he liked so much that he didn’t want to stop – go figure), and in the evening I spun and watched ‚Firefly‘. Then I ate too much chocolate (it is the season of gifted chocolate that doesn’t agree with me but that I stuff my face with nonetheless, again), and went to bed too late. I still need to find out how to deal with those boxes of chocolate. I always plan to give them to my husband for safekeeping right away but then I never do and end up eating the whole box in one sitting after dinner until my stomach hurts and I’m feeling nauseous. Bad tactic.
On Sunday I looked at my – reasonably empty – calendar, and then I started putting all the things I want to do in addition to teaching in there. Exercise, practice, writing and such. Also the piano tuner appointment on Friday, and us going out for lunch on Friday which means there won’t be time to clean on Friday yet again. So I put some cleaning in as well.
And now my schedule is full. It does even look rather overwhelming. I look at it often and there is just a plethora of colorful boxes with things to do.
So now I know why I feel that I never have time – I never have time.
The teaching alone is completely doable. Work every day from around two or three in the afternoon until somewhere around six. Then I put the four times of running in there. Still doable, it just takes a bit of each morning. Then the grocery shopping and running errands (that would be today), still doable. Then I put half an hour of music making in there every day – well, that means I need to juggle a bit. Still doable. Then the strength training, and it’s starting to get a little tight.
Then I start finding times for writing and for cleaning, and bam! – Full.
On three days this week I had to schedule the writing in the evenings after dinner and spinning. Which means it’s most likely not going to happen. Maybe I can turn the writing and the spinning around, we’ll see. And this is just half an hour per day.
The time is there, I can see it. And my mornings are mostly free still. But it is a lot.
So the time-blocking is making this look maybe bigger than it would otherwise. On the other hand if I hadn’t scheduled everything I would go into today with the illusion that I have oodles of time, and can do everything I want and hang around reading and knitting for a few hours as well. Because today I only have two students.
When in fact there is so much other stuff I’d like to get done today between teaching that the day completely packed.
As with every productivity tool there are two sides to this but I have found that when I think about all the things I want to do, and how I spend my time it really helps me a lot to block out parts of my day for certain things. Even on weekends. Because when I start into a Saturday thinking that that will be the day I publish the podcast, sew a dress, play the piano for an hour, work on my website, and bake a cake I feel all happy and hopeful. And since the day is completely empty, stretching out before me I might only start after lunch, and sit there and knit for an hour, and then read ravelry for another hour. Which means there are only two hours left in the day before dinner. And two hours can’t hold four hours worth of things I want to do.
So every time I’m going, „I really want to do this!“ I have started thinking, „Okay, when will I do this? Where does it fit in my day?“ and that is helping a lot.
It is also making my days feel a little crowded but I’m always in favor of looking reality in the eye instead of living an illusion.