Monday, April 6: Doesn’t feel like Easter break yet

When my alarm went off I turned around and fell asleep again. This is happening more and more which means – I really need to go to bed earlier. I did do my morning routine in full which means I actually spent 25 minutes on the novel. Phew.

There was also a lot of reading online throughout the day. Still, things happened. It was the first day of Easter break for the boy which meant he spiraled into playing all the video games and not showing up in time for meals. I’d like this to change again, please.

I did go on my run/walk:

It was warm enough that I didn’t need a jacket or sweater at all. Just a few degrees more and I will have to wear shorts:

My husband opted to stay home and work in the garden. There is so much to do at the moment that he felt he couldn’t afford to lose an hour to running. He didn’t like it, though.

Then we made wild garlic pesto. The wild garlic is growing in our backyard:

After that I had a long talk with the boy while doing the dishes and hanging up laundry (he helped). Then it was time to help my husband make his new video teaching setup more ergonomic. He had had to perch on a really uncomfortable chair so that his students could see both his face and his hands on the guitar. We moved the computer to the side so it sits lower. The lighting is better in that place as well. Unfortunately, something seems to have gone wrong when we connected the computer to his stereo. He ended up wearing headphones while teaching.

Then it was time for me to get ready to teach and to ask the boy to hang up some more laundry. I had to wear a long-sleeved tee in a room with tropical heat because of the laundry situation. The good thing was that I also wore a light summer skirt with bare legs.

After teaching I attended the first session of the „Growing Gills“ book club. I’m hoping that this will help me but am a little skeptical as well. I know that all of her suggestions are good ones, I’m only not quite sure if they are good for me.

For example, Jessica Abel who wrote the book and is doing the book club is a big proponent of time blocking. And I love the idea. It even worked for me for about a week or so. But I just can’t be bothered enough to adhere to my time blocked schedule.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, time blocking means that for everything you want to do on a given day you find a spot on your calendar. You don’t just make a to-do list, you put it on your calendar. This can be very helpful in making you realize that you have over-scheduled yourself. Of course I can put „sort through yarn stash“ on my to-do list for tomorrow but when I look at my calendar and see that I only have half an hour of free time between two students it becomes clear that sorting through all my yarn won’t happen.

Now, time-blocking does not mean you can never change your plans. If things change you also change your schedule. But at least you can see right away that something will have to give if you extend your lunch break for an hour.

As I said, that worked for me for about five seconds. I put everything in my calendar and set a timer for each thing I wanted to do and then did it. Mostly. Until I didn’t.

But we’re not at time blocking yet with the book club, right now we are at time-tracking. Which I also find a good idea. In theory. And I have been tracking my time for two or three days now. (See, I don’t even know.) It is a bit like when people start tracking what they eat. Most people get so self-conscious about writing every bite down that they immediately eat less. Me, I just write down things like „ate a bag of potato chips, and bar of chocolate and a bag of gummy bears after lunch; felt horrible and nauseous“.

It’s the same with the time tracking. I already knew that I was spending about three hours a day wasting time online. Writing it on a sheet of paper changes nothing for me. Do I want to spend that much time on social media and such? No, I don’t. Will writing it down change anything? Highly unlikely.

The most interesting thing to me is how much time I spend doing things like „knitting, reading, talking to husband“ or „waiting for the boy while scrolling through Instagram“ or „in between time“. It feels like most of my life is spent either waiting for someone, or sitting around knitting and switching between talking to my husband who is wandering in and out of the room and reading a novel. Or idly reading stuff online while I’m waiting for the boy to come downstairs for a meal.

It often feels that my lack of structure isn’t really the problem but the lack of everybody else’s structure. Like, my husband usually comes over or breakfast at 8.30. Which means he will show up at any random time between 8 (unlikely) and 8.45 (more likely). The boy is supposed to come down for breakfast at 9.15. Which means he will be downstairs some time between 9.20 and 12. Yesterday I went upstairs and woke him up at 9.30 because he overslept.

My husband usually starts cooking around 12 and he likes me to help with the chopping and such, so I will usually be in the kitchen waiting for him to start around that time. Yesterday he started cooking and needing my help at 12.30. I spent that thirty minutes just sitting there, reading Twitter. It is interesting that he thinks that he is doing things at the exact same time every day. But I have my time tracking protocols and can tell you that he actually isn’t.

Now, I know that things shift around and that isn’t a big problem. But, on the other hand, there were about ninety minutes in that day that I could have spent working on my novel or making progress on learning Affinity Photo if I just had known I would have them. And that is making me a bit resentful.

If I were to tell my family that I want to work on something specific at a certain time they will always respect that. But I don’t quite know what to do with all these time slots that keep shifting. Yesterday the boy and I got talking while doing the dishes and that expanded into all available time. I want to make time for these conversations, I think they are really necessary and a good use of my time. But things like this happen all the time and every day. And at the end of the day I am looking at a to-do list that has way too many things not crossed off yet.

By the way, I switched back to my old blog theme. I’m hoping that that will bring pictures back to the RSS feed for now. It is definitely not a long-term solution but I really don’t like it when I’m taking care to take all these pictures and then put them into my blog post and then they don’t show up for most of you.

Sorry for rambling but you know how I am about time-management.

Today there will be going to the health food store, some teaching via video chat, strength training, writing and early to bed. We’ll see how that goes.