I decided to simply track time and not be judgemental about it this week. This challenge made me very aware that one parent had very strong opinions about how time should be spent (ahem always productively) and I felt uncomfortable about how much time I spend on the internet. I decided that I do like reading a lot of stuff on the internet. Current events are pretty unique and there’s a lot I’ve wanted to read and learn about. I decided to let the guilt go and simply track without judgement.
I noticed however that the internet is my go-to whenever I feel lonely or bored. I would like to find some better solutions to that. Towards the end of the week I started on one of my longer term Yoga goals. I think giving some structure to my days will also help.
One night I spent the last hour or so of the day reading and journaling in bed. The cat came and snuggled with me, instead of lobbying for me to come upstairs and go to bed. I’d like to end more of my days like that.
I’ve been reading some of the books by Laura Vanderkam. There’s a lot in them and I probably will read them more. She makes the point that it’s important to know what your goals are, and that’s a weakness for me.
I am going to continue to track my time at least for next week. I would like to start trying to schedule a bit more and block out chunks of time to work on specific things, as I’d started to do before the virus struck. From the looks of it, this is going to be what life is like for a while. It’s starting to feel like the new normal and I’m getting into more of a routine with it. At this point I can’t see scheduling much more than a day in advance, but hey, baby steps.
You can track the descent into COVID19 related internet news sites and having to numb myself with television over the course of the month. Final 3 days I imagine will be more of the same.
My running was way down again: 4:22
Working out at home was up: 2:33
Reading was about what it has been: 2:07
Walking Woody was significantly up: 4:15
Work was down to 41 hours.
I wouldn’t say work is steadying out: one of my coworkers who was out for a couple weeks is back on Monday and that plus a doctor’s weird schedule mean next week my hours will be significantly lower, though there are a couple projects I might be able to work on, depending on what my boss says.
I’m still adjusting to changes that keep happening, so it’s a little hard to look at the data from this month and get a clear picture of how I’d go about restructuring my time, especially as for the second half of the month I gave myself permission to not be productive in specific ways during my time not working. A lot of the “productive” activities I gravitated toward (cooking and meal prep, gardening, small amount of cleaning) aren’t activities I had decided to track.
I am happiest that Woody’s walk times increased throughout the month. He is certainly benefitting from all of this!
So to finish off (because I need to feel like I finished something this month!), the last 3 days of March had the same trend as the previous 4 weeks:
Bed: 27.25
Work: 14
TV: 10.75
Internet: 5.25
Eating: 1.5
Hygiene: 0.75
Exercise: 3
Reading: 2.75
Chores: 0.5
Hobbies: 1.25
Unaccounted: 5
This challenge was a bust, so much for reducing my screen time habits!
… I did track for almost 2 weeks, but then it all went to shit and I didn’t post anything.