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Counting Seconds
Jun. 12th, 2024 11:30 am Taking a few more steps toward being a planning creature again: dusted off the old Google Calendar to plan the week, and it actually helps a lot to see how much of my time is taken up with commitments.
Let me explain the calendar. It's really five calendars -- Appointments, Bottlenecks, Critical, Dailies, and Flexible (A, B, C, D, F). Appointments are the things that are non-negotiable, must happen things. Bottlenecks are blocks of time you mark off to make sure you're *ready* for the appointments; like prepping a presentation for a meeting or making sure your paperwork is ready for a doctor's appointment. Critical is the calendar for the things on your to-do list but not directly tied to a time. Dailies is the calendar for the time dedicated to your routines -- showering, meditation, etc. And Flexible is basically the calendar for "If I have enough energy and I was my best self today, this is how I'd spend this time."
It was recommended for ADHD brains where time-blindness is a significant issue, and that certainly suits me! I have no idea how long something should take, and I'll often take WAY too long doing basic shit like, you know, taking a shower or making a meal. When I'm present and focused on what I'm doing, it's so nice to dive into the sensation of it -- there's no time in that state; there's just the action.
But here in reality, I can't spend two hours making dinner and cleaning the kitchen every day. :P Thus, the calendar.
Sneppers mentioned that sharing a calendar would be a great way to queue up home projects, since he could respond and/or edit at his leisure instead of facing the full force of a morning jackalope ready to greet the day. XD That brought me back around to this, so I can actually reflect on the time I have and how to spend it most wisely.
What I'm finding is that my days tend to get pretty full, pretty quickly. Mondays and Tuesdays tend to be the crunchiest, where just about every 30-minute block is spoken for from rising to bedtime. Granted, the evenings are generally filled with social engagements so it's not like I'm working two jobs or anything. :P But it's nice to see the 'data' bear out how those days *feel*, which is way too busy with no real time for myself.
I don't think the way I spend time on those days is a problem, but now that I know those days are going to be fairly set in general I can ease my expectations. Mondays are for setting myself up for success at work and home, gym, dinner, game, bed. Tuesdays are work, gym, dinner, probably movie. Wednesdays are work, a bit of a gap, and either dinner or game. Thursdays are free, Fridays are for D&D, and Saturdays are generally for overtime.
I guess it helps to connect my subjective experience to something objective in ways that help me gain a better perspective on just how much I can get done in a certain amount of time -- and to think of ways I can be more efficient, which is never a bad thing. Now I know that I'm spending way too long in the kitchen, I can think about ways to shorten that time. Instead of chopping/mincing garlic, maybe I can keep a jar on hand -- or get a slap chop. If it takes an hour for me to shave my head, maybe I can take less time with better clippers or something.
All of this is in service to...well, getting up off my duff and making another run at some goals. :) If I'm going to stay put at this relatively stable job, my best moves are learning as much as possible to get better at the "core responsibilities" while building my community/network; and finding a way to supplement my income so I don't feel quite so poor.
The mandatory overtime is actually a good opportunity for just...getting better through practice *and* making extra money. There's no upper limit right now, so I could (and probably should) really put in some hours to build my paycheck. Coming through like that in a time of crisis is one of the best ways to build relationships in your team, and at the moment it looks like the only cost is my time.
It could be nice to really throw myself into something for a little while -- but I'd much rather it be Final Fantasy XIV or my own Dungeons and Dragons game. :) Thinking about the time I've committed already also helps me take stock of what I could spend less time doing, or just how vast my pockets of free time are. My weekends are completely unstructured, and the work week itself gets easier as it goes.
Next week, I'll try to refine the calendar a bit more by taking a chunk of the weekend to prep ahead of time. Sneppers is on staycation, so his schedule is a lot more flexible -- it might be a good time to coordinate on some burrow projects so he feels better about how many hours he'll spend playing video games. ;)
Through all this, I'm trying to be mindful about my tendency to overextend too quickly. Just because there ARE vast quantities of unstructured time doesn't mean they need to be filled. If my calendar is just a block of colors from waking to bedtime, it's a sign I'm heading for burnout. I'm going to start with my appointments, then the time I spend getting ready for those, then see what my week looks like.
Let me explain the calendar. It's really five calendars -- Appointments, Bottlenecks, Critical, Dailies, and Flexible (A, B, C, D, F). Appointments are the things that are non-negotiable, must happen things. Bottlenecks are blocks of time you mark off to make sure you're *ready* for the appointments; like prepping a presentation for a meeting or making sure your paperwork is ready for a doctor's appointment. Critical is the calendar for the things on your to-do list but not directly tied to a time. Dailies is the calendar for the time dedicated to your routines -- showering, meditation, etc. And Flexible is basically the calendar for "If I have enough energy and I was my best self today, this is how I'd spend this time."
It was recommended for ADHD brains where time-blindness is a significant issue, and that certainly suits me! I have no idea how long something should take, and I'll often take WAY too long doing basic shit like, you know, taking a shower or making a meal. When I'm present and focused on what I'm doing, it's so nice to dive into the sensation of it -- there's no time in that state; there's just the action.
But here in reality, I can't spend two hours making dinner and cleaning the kitchen every day. :P Thus, the calendar.
Sneppers mentioned that sharing a calendar would be a great way to queue up home projects, since he could respond and/or edit at his leisure instead of facing the full force of a morning jackalope ready to greet the day. XD That brought me back around to this, so I can actually reflect on the time I have and how to spend it most wisely.
What I'm finding is that my days tend to get pretty full, pretty quickly. Mondays and Tuesdays tend to be the crunchiest, where just about every 30-minute block is spoken for from rising to bedtime. Granted, the evenings are generally filled with social engagements so it's not like I'm working two jobs or anything. :P But it's nice to see the 'data' bear out how those days *feel*, which is way too busy with no real time for myself.
I don't think the way I spend time on those days is a problem, but now that I know those days are going to be fairly set in general I can ease my expectations. Mondays are for setting myself up for success at work and home, gym, dinner, game, bed. Tuesdays are work, gym, dinner, probably movie. Wednesdays are work, a bit of a gap, and either dinner or game. Thursdays are free, Fridays are for D&D, and Saturdays are generally for overtime.
I guess it helps to connect my subjective experience to something objective in ways that help me gain a better perspective on just how much I can get done in a certain amount of time -- and to think of ways I can be more efficient, which is never a bad thing. Now I know that I'm spending way too long in the kitchen, I can think about ways to shorten that time. Instead of chopping/mincing garlic, maybe I can keep a jar on hand -- or get a slap chop. If it takes an hour for me to shave my head, maybe I can take less time with better clippers or something.
All of this is in service to...well, getting up off my duff and making another run at some goals. :) If I'm going to stay put at this relatively stable job, my best moves are learning as much as possible to get better at the "core responsibilities" while building my community/network; and finding a way to supplement my income so I don't feel quite so poor.
The mandatory overtime is actually a good opportunity for just...getting better through practice *and* making extra money. There's no upper limit right now, so I could (and probably should) really put in some hours to build my paycheck. Coming through like that in a time of crisis is one of the best ways to build relationships in your team, and at the moment it looks like the only cost is my time.
It could be nice to really throw myself into something for a little while -- but I'd much rather it be Final Fantasy XIV or my own Dungeons and Dragons game. :) Thinking about the time I've committed already also helps me take stock of what I could spend less time doing, or just how vast my pockets of free time are. My weekends are completely unstructured, and the work week itself gets easier as it goes.
Next week, I'll try to refine the calendar a bit more by taking a chunk of the weekend to prep ahead of time. Sneppers is on staycation, so his schedule is a lot more flexible -- it might be a good time to coordinate on some burrow projects so he feels better about how many hours he'll spend playing video games. ;)
Through all this, I'm trying to be mindful about my tendency to overextend too quickly. Just because there ARE vast quantities of unstructured time doesn't mean they need to be filled. If my calendar is just a block of colors from waking to bedtime, it's a sign I'm heading for burnout. I'm going to start with my appointments, then the time I spend getting ready for those, then see what my week looks like.
