Time Management and Single Motherhood

In my perpetual quest to get myself temporally organized, I tried a stint at time tracking recently and, yes, gave up because I wasn't learning anything I didn't already know.*  But for the week or so I attempted this exercise, it became abundantly clear, as it always does, there's not much in the way of open time in my schedule.  Because I'm a single working parent.  Other work I've been reading (i.e. Burnout) makes it clear that if folks have less than two hours of leisure in a day they don't feel great....and even if I generously understand leisure that is ALWAYS TRUE IN MY LIFE.  So while it may technically be true that we all have 168 hours in a week, we do not all share the same temporal privilege.   And outsourcing, through which one trades money for time, is only available to those with economic privilege.  There's only so much "time management strategies" can do with structural inequality.

The point here is not woe-is-me.  I'm at a relatively good moment in my life.  But a real epiphany in terms of why I always feel like I don't have enough time (even as I've scaled back my work responsibilities, and the nature of my parenting responsibilities have changed as a result of growing kids).  I actually don't have enough time.

Here's where I leave you with a day in the life from my recent experiment (on Monday, which is an evening I can mostly claim for myself, as Tiny Boy has an obligation).

7 am:  awake, feed cats, get TB breakfast, make coffee, drink coffee and read

8 am:  help TB with meds, lunch making, out the door; 20 minute walk on treadmill while watching work-related video

8:30ish: work (research and teaching tasks) + breakfast

10:00: quick shower, make lunch

10:30: leave for campus; office hrs + back-to-back classes [I eat lunch during office hrs/ course prep and have a 30 minute window to walk between buildings, go back to my office and gather up my things to leave campus immediately after last class]

5:00: leave campus to pick up TB

5:30: home, make dinner [I don't remember what this was?  Maybe leftover chicken and veggies?]

6:15: take TB to theater rehearsal, where I meet up with a friend for a walk

7:00: home alone; listen to music, practice Yiddish on Duolingo; call my mother; do household chores; order some groceries for delivery on Tues

8:15: go back to pick up Tiny Boy; home for protracted bedtime routine [getting a snack and reading books]; feed cats

9:30: Tiny Boy is finally in his room with lights out; get ready for bed + watch TV (I don't remember what exactly but I am watching a cooking show and also Mad About You)

10:30 lights out for me, though it takes a while to fall asleep

* I do think it would useful for me to track ONLY a particular task, like email or housework, to find out what I'm doing, but I need to track my time so closely (like 5-10 minute increments) to learn about these habits that it becomes onerous.

The Time Tracking Experiment

As urged by All the Time Management Experts Everywhere, including the creative sorts, I decided to undertake a time tracking exercise.*  The first week I did this stopped after a day when LG was in a major car accident and we spent a good chunk of the day in the ER and the whole week went haywire.**  I tried again, dutifully trying to record my life in 30 minute increments.  What did I learn from this?  I have yet to do all the tallies--and I did not make it the entire week, just Mon-Fri--but my life looks pretty much the way it feels.  Mostly balanced with a touch of overwhelming?

Another realization:  Pre-Covid I had campus days and home days....I still do, but the difference is "home days" still involve zoom meetings for work.  I need to start finding a way to have one day per week that involves no meetings of any sort.

I do not tend to "waste" time.  But I'd been off twitter for the bulk of the summer and it turns out if you hop on twitter for thirty seconds to post something it's hard to get out.  Thus confirming my decision to excise twitter from my life except for very strategic work-related things.

I am really good about making progress on Big Tasks.  I am also good about doing the routine things that need doing (i.e. keeping up with my class).  The smaller tasks that are important but not urgent create a bigger problem.  Because even if I parcel them out there are too freaking many of them.  

This coming week I think I will narrow the scope of my analysis and keep more concrete records of the messy mishmash that occurs when I get into email to work on admin tasks.  And also the home hours that fade into the ether.

Today will involve some cleaning, some cooking, some work-related tasks, and also apparently a trip to the drug store to buy hair dye for Tiny Boy, as promised for a reward for stopping hair picking, so wish me luck on that.

* I am reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals which I highly recommend.  It clarifies a lot of why time management literature in general makes me cranky, though I am quite drawn to it.

** LG is mostly fine now and will heal.  Some fractures and bruises.  Not in any pain at this point.  Follow up with orthopedic specialist and pediatrician.

The Evening Update (Redux)

So it turns out that I don't really have an hour in the evening, most evenings, of non-kid discretionary time. 

This week, on Monday I hung out with Tiny Boy between driving LG to and fro.  Last night I was back on campus for a talk with a legit celebrity.  It was super fun.  But also, that was 7-9 pm.  Tonight is the mirror of Monday, as Tiny Boy and I will shortly work on his homework, he'll shower, and we'll pick up LG.  There will be some time in there in which to read or something but not much.  Tomorrow I have parent-teacher conferences at the high school.  Friday is usually family night, including LG and I watching The Good Place on the computer.

*

I've also been thinking about all the things that I do that are just an hour here and hour there that add up over the course of a semester, say.  Like, I'm observing my non-tenured colleagues for review.  That's four observations, two hours each, plus doing the post-class conversation and write up.  That's more than an entire work day's worth of work.  There are a finite number of weekdays during the semester (a in a fifteen week semester).  I wonder how many other things I do somewhat infrequently but when taken together they add up (i.e. writing letters of rec, supervising a student group, attending talks/readings, each committee meeting, etc etc etc)  It's no wonder, really, that I'm feeling like my job is preventing me from getting work done.

Another Post Brought to You by the Sunday Afternoon Kid-Sitter

Well, I will say that this is the longest I've ever 'tracked' my time in any systematic way.  I'd say I didn't really learn anything--I really didn't learn anything--but I'm going to give it another week in which I look more carefully (that is, 10-15 minute increments, if I can) at the 'mishmash' times with kids.  The one thing I did notice (okay, okay) is that when I'm really in a work groove I don't take breaks. At all. Like, I sat down on Friday to work on a piece of writing and didn't surface for air for another three hours.  

I also think I'm at a stage in my life that although I'd like to say I don't work at all on Saturdays....I need to work a bit on Saturdays.  I did an hour yesterday, of the commenting-on-student-work variety, while we were at the vet (and Tiny Boy was occupied with a tablet) and when I had Tiny Boy and a friend at the park.  The rest of the day I was very much present on my life and didn't really think about work (even though we met a friend-work colleague for an apple picking excursion).  

Right now he's at the park with his kid-sitter.  I've been reading (this is the break) and will shortly turn to the commenting on student writing.  And then get a chicken in the oven.  And an apple crisp.  And vanilla ice cream in the ice cream maker because really it's that good.

Where to find the time?

I am really feeling pressure on my available time.  I am a single, working parent of two kids with very different temporal needs.  End stop.  This general situation is not going to change for the next three years with LG in the house.  I am interested to see what happens when it's just me and Tiny Boy.  But that's still far off.

When I remember having 'more time' in a general sense was before Tiny Boy's birth, when LG was in lower elementary school and had an early bedtime (6:30/7 in kindergarten, as I recall!).  She also took the bus to school, which meant my work day started as early as 8:15.  So even though I was doing fertility treatment for some of that...my time was more my own (this through the rosy lens of a decade.  I know it didn't feel like it at the time).

I just commented on a post of SHU's that I need about eight more hours per week.  I do think that's about right.  That comes out to about an hour a day...so in theory I should be able to make that time (I mean, I do manage to watch TV!).  In practical terms, I'm not sure when unless it means (a) giving up sleep, (b) giving up time with kids, (c) giving up working out (which is not happening A LOT) anyway, or (d) working literally up until my own bedtime, which doesn't seem good from a sleep hygiene lens.  The other possibility (e) is more childcare on weekends.  I hadn't really considered this until right now.  It's interesting to contemplate, either by adding another hour to my Sunday sitter (right now she does 3) or possibly Saturday.  The hard thing is that to do the kind of work that requires those additional 6-8 hours means I need to have energy and focus, so deciding to carve it out at 9:30 pm doesn't make a lot of sense.

And now that I've used 15 minutes of my kid-in-school time, I'm going to get to WORK.

Observations welcome.  I'm planning to track my time for October.

What I'm Not Doing

Per my time tracking post, I largely don't dislike how I'm spending my time.  I work on meaningful things.  I spend time with my kids.  I have some 'leisure' time.

The things I'd potentially like to spend less time on are chauffeuring children and email.  The former isn't really changeable and I've already started listening to books on CD as a way of making it more enjoyable and 'useful.'  The latter is a work in progress.  Some concrete actions: (1) I've blocked my work email before 11:00 am and after 4:30 pm.  That doesn't mean I don't check it, but I have to go out of my way to get on a different device or open a different browser; (2) If I see an email thread going I don't respond until I've read the most recent thing...waiting until the end of the day to do this helps; (3) I try to limit email sessions to 20 minutes twice per day (hahahaha.  no seriously.  I'm trying.)  The problem is that "email" stands in for doing things that are actually related to my job, like communicating with other humans about collaborative enterprises.  What I need to get better at: (1) keeping responses short and (2) separating initiating emails from responding emails.  My problems first.  Your problems later.  And even more so (3) reminding myself that some things ARE JUST NOT MY JOB like random requests from strangers.  No. Really.

What I'd like to do more of, which is to say, stuff that needs to be scheduled:  making art; going to the museum; reading, beyond what I'm teaching; yoga.

What I feel I should do more of, or the stuff that causes guilt, anxiety, and bad feelings: various household tasks, esp. yard work; the less central parts of my job; submitting my work.  I am profoundly feeling what Dr. Crazy used to call the "wheel of neglect."  This week was a student week.  Next week is an editing week.  Etc.

I'm thinking of all this as I was asked to serve in another administrative capacity by my chair.  I told her I'd think about it.  Gulp.

In Which I Fail Again at Tracking my Time

Inspired by SHU and Laura Vanderkam, I tried time tracking this week.  I say tried because although I wrote down what I did and could tell you the basic architecture of my days and weeks, I didn't really learn anything from the experience.  In order for me to learn something about habits which could use rethinking, I'd need to break my time into about 5 minute increments....and that in itself would probably leave me stressed out and unproductive.*  The other thing I will actually start tracking is how many words per day I send in emails and number of requests sent by others.  I'm pretty good about limiting time on email, but there are no doubt ways I could improve in this particular area.

What I do need to do (a la my Duck Break post) is take strategic breaks in the middle of big work blocks.  I also need to replenish office snacks (done!) because a 100-calorie nut pack is not enough to keep me going from 11:30-4:00 while I'm on campus**, which should have been self-apparent ,but wasn't.  I also need to plan to be out of the house on Wednesday, when the painter returns to do the living room, because I really can't focus when she's around (she's doing three rooms, across three weeks...)***

What else?  Tiny Boy's new weekend babysitter comes by later on a trial run (she's the daughter of a colleague in another department) so I'm excited about that.  In October I have two conferences (Toronto friend, I would love to see you!) and a book deadline and I think something else that I'm forgetting or blocking out.  It will get done.  It will get done.  It will get done.

Now we're off to the Whole Foods...





*Actually, I take it back, I did learn something, which is that I talk to my new chair in lieu of swapping emails, which is nice, and led to a meeting on her front stoop with Tiny Boy in tow, which was unusual and in this case took longer than the email but also communicated nuance in important ways and you know, no paper trail.  (Yes, the drama continues, though I am no longer at the center of it, thank goodness.)

** Nor is buying a candy bar from the vending machine.

** *My dining room is now this color and it is making me ridiculously happy:

 

When it's done, living room should be this, and hopefully more grayish than purple:

A Day in the Life

I've begun (again) a time-tracking exercise of sorts, mostly because I'm curious of how I think I spend my time is actually how I spend my time.  Here's what today looked like:

6:15 wake up, try to fall back to sleep; listen to LG puttering around
7:00 alarm goes off (I need to set in for LG); get dressed in 'workout' clothes; get things together
7:30 leave the house; drop off LG; drop off Tiny Boy, including dressing him at daycare and reading books
8:30 home; coffee and breakfast while writing proposal (administrative nonsense)
9:30 work on book project/index (due Oct 1!!!!)
10:30 painter shows up/clean kitchen so she can work
11:00 email triage
11:30 walk, shower, dress for class, quick lunch
12:15 drive to campus; class
2:45 back to my office; email triage, stare into space
3:00 class prep for Thurs, interrupted by my dept chair stopping by, but this saved me an email to her
4:15 stop at computer store on the way to parking garage; pick up Tiny Boy
5:00 home; check in with LG; water plants, call mom, cook dinner
5:45-7:30 kid time, including dinner, family lunch-making, ice cream trip, dance party with Tiny Boy
7:30 protracted bedtime rituals and nonsense
8:20 sit in rocking chair and play candy crush/write this
8:45 sleeping Tiny Boy!

From here on out will involve some time with LG, tucking her in at 9:30, tucking myself in with Lunesta, a book (for class) and half an episode of Scandal, hopefully asleep by 10:30*.  Really, today held no surprises.  But predictably, the requests for me to do things are piling up (travel request form, call for undergraduate research proposals, multiple meetings) and despite quitting (ha!) I still find that I am asked about a lot of details related to former admin job because, no surprise, there's literally no one else to do it.  Still, my stress level is way down.  We'll see how long this lasts.



* usually Lunesta knocks me out in half an hour; if I don't take my full dose (as I tried the other night) I was awake until 3:00 am.  ugh.

Time Use and the Single Mama

(or, a post vaguely in response to Xyk's request for me to talk about being a single mom)

I feel like I've written about this before, but I very much appreciate the line in Brigid Schulte's (maligned in some circles) Overwhelmed, in which she characterizes single mothers as "time starved."

I'm the first to acknowledge that not all single mothers are the same.  I have resources that a mom working hourly at the Meijer does not.  But I don't have the possibility of shipping my kid off to her dad's house for a weekend, as do some of my divorced mama friends.

Yes, we all have 168 hours but the responsibilities that go into those hours, and the possibilities of outsourcing (paid or to other family) vary widely.  What I fit into my time (in the broad sense):

• doing my job (currently involves teaching, writing, editing, mentoring, event planning, advising)
• taking care of my kids (over the summer I've been dropping off around 8:30 and picking up around 4:30, sometimes later, sometimes earlier; during the academic year drop off will be 8:00 and pick up will vary, probably closer to 5:00.  And while that might be similar to many working parents, the fact is I'm responsible ALL THE TIME.  As my therapist liked to say, "if you go down, the boat sinks")
• taking care of my house (I do not do an excessive amount of domestic work.  I am contemplating outsourcing because I think I could afford it like once/month and the house could stand to be cleaner.  But also consider in this category everything that goes along with home-ownership.  We currently do not have enough towel rods in the bathroom because they fell down and drilling holes is not in my skill set.  This means hiring someone.  This is a project.  There are many projects.  They fall to the bottom of my list.  The kids do some minor chores but only with huge amounts of supervision and/or nagging)
• caring for two cats (theoretically LG is responsible for cat feeding but in practical terms she hasn't done so all summer; this will hopefully change next week, but she never does the litter box)

Despite this, I do manage to find pockets of time for leisure (I hate the word 'self-care' probably as much as Ana hates tea).  I've been getting massages about every 5-6 weeks.  I go to yoga once/week, though admittedly that is the first thing I cut when I face a time crunch (mostly because of the time of day of the particular class I attend).  I watch TV almost daily (30-45 min, before bed).  I walk 10,000 steps every day, some of that strategically and some of it because I'm running around.  I peruse a handful of blogs and glance at my twitter feed (mostly during the time I am sitting in the rocker while Tiny Boy falls asleep).   I am not now, nor have I ever been, on Face,book.  I read, which is also work (I rarely read something that doesn't make it onto a class syllabus) but still pleasure.  If I see friends, it is usually with kids in tow (other single mom friends) though rarely a lunch-date with a colleague.  I'd be more inclined at this stage to contemplate going out at night but there would need to be a really good reason.  Really good.  Because I'm an introverted homebody who doesn't sleep if she has real human contact after 9:00 pm.

I think mostly I've achieved something resembling 'balance.'  But it's still technically summer.  Talk to me in a week...

Burger King Is Good For Kids and Grown-Ups (Part II)

Long time readers might recall that (circa the trying times of 2009-2010) LG informed me that "Burger King is good for kids and grown ups."  Kids, she asserted, can play in the play structure while grown ups can work on their computers.  Win win.  Although I was not and will never be a Burger King kind of mama when it comes to restaurant choices, it occurred to me that Tiny Boy is now old enough to climb the play structure ON HIS OWN, and I consider the purchasing of a juice box and a small coffee a sort of entrance fee.  So we're at the BK while LG is at home practicing the violin which, while she's actually quite talented for a first-year violinist, makes me INSANE from noise-production in a very confined space.  He's run amok.  I've spent some time on student writing. Win-win-win.

And now I must get back to the papers...

An Update on All the Plans (A 5-Minute-Post)

I'm feeling less overwhelmed than I was about a month ago, largely I think because there's a lull in committee work.  And I turned in my annual review materials (which took about the equivalent of a whole work day to fit in).  And we're down one major event.

I am frankly in denial about Feb 10-20, which includes, among other things, a child's birthday, a sleepover, a reading/workshop thing, a trip to see The Sound of Music, and President's Day which means MINIMAL CHILDCARE.  Plus probably some on campus interviews for that search committee.  But like I said, denial.

*

Here's where I am in terms of all the spectacular plans for 2016:

1. The plan to lose 5 pounds:  This is a moving target.  My weight went up around the holidays and then went back down.  But that was still higher than I'm comfortable with.  I am now eating salads every day for lunch, only letting myself have sweet things in the evening, and no sugar in any beverage other than morning coffee.  These changes are minimal.  But really at this point I only want to lose another 2-4 pounds total.  So minimal is fine.

2. The plan to exercise every day:  this has not happened, mostly because I got sick (ongoing) and didn't want to leave my bed, much less take a long walk.  Although I had a rocky start, I'm sticking with YogaGlo, though.  I don't know exactly why, other than the fact that I've paid for it, that I'm more likely to do even 5 minutes of yoga if I get to follow a teacher vs. coming up with it on my own.  But it's making me accountable in a small way.  I also realized it's helpful for me to have different kinds of exercise (walking, yoga, dance) for different kinds of days.  I need to do something about this realization.

[okay, that was 5 minutes....continued roughly 7 hours later]

3. The plan to spend quality time with the kids:  A work in progress, thwarted by them more than me (i.e. LG doesn't get her stuff done so our time is cut short).  But I do read to Tiny Boy every morning, and LG and I have been doing 1000-piece puzzles (we're on the third, with one repeat).  I think one day per week (Thursdays?) I'm going to start taking him for a bagel on the way to school.

4. The plan to read in the morning:  yes!  Now instead of opening my browser while I drink my coffee, I read.  Mostly poems.  Some memoir-type nonfiction.  Overall this has been a great switch for my morning routine.

5. The plan to limit email:  yes!  While I have gotten derailed on a few occasions (i.e. emailing back and forth with my former diss director about a project) I have mostly limited email to a couple times per day.  I could be even more regimented about this.

I feel like there's another plan in the works, but I'm not remembering what it is at the moment.  Oh, next step: fine-tuning my after-LG-goes-to-bed time.  Theoretically I read and then watch a short something on Netflix and go to bed.  In practical terms I am starting to watch multiple somethings before getting sleepy, which I think has to do with the timing of taking Lunesta (it doesn't hit me as fast as it used to) as well as being generally more well rested.  And that's a good thing indeed.

Waking Up, or, Life on the Other Side

(I wrote a draft of this, and it was great I tell you, and then hit some key and it disappeared into the ether!  Argh!)

The gist of it was I had an epiphany yesterday, one of those that I have cyclically and then forget about, probably because it goes against a cultural dominant.  Even as I'm making--and dreading--my "to do list" it occurs to me that those "to dos" are my LIFE.

Perhaps it's because all the big things I've worked for in my adult life I've accomplished.  And at the moment I have no big WANT that's fueling me, just the sense that I am where I need to be.  And past the crisis mode of infertility/high risk pregnancy and the make-it-through-the-day mode of baby/toddlerhood and sleep deprivation.  It's time to actually thrive.  I mean, Tiny Boy is 4!  LG is almost 12!!!

Nothing is urgent, which makes everything feel urgent.  But really, what would happen, for example, if I decided to not check email AT ALL over the remainder of winter break?  Probably not much.

*

I'm writing this here, because this is really as close to a journal as I get.  Although there are many things I'd like to accomplish and "goals" I have for the year, I'll list here only what I'd like to do in the next few weeks.  I'm reluctant to call them "goals"; perhaps areas of focus or dedication?  (Life is not a business.  And although there is much good advice to be found in books about 'productivity,' I'm not sure that productivity is what we should aspire to.)  Anyway:

Self:  establish regular exercise regimen/daily yoga practice.  This is tricky, due to the cold/snow/ice where I live.  After a lot of deliberation I'll spare you (though I'd be happy to answer any questions about my thought process!), I'm trying out "YogaGlo" online and might also try an online barre class.

Family: spend one-on-one time with my kids.  This is something I have mostly always done, but I'd like to think strategically about it (talked about this some in my last post).

Work:  establish more regular reading habits (I do read, but I'd like this to be more systematic.) One small change I'm going to implement is reading on paper before sitting down to write for the day.

*

I'll probably say more about this process as it goes.  Now I need to go check some things off the list live my life.

New Years Resolutions, Themes, and All the Plans

I've been reading with interest as the bloggers I read put up their annual review posts, and those detailing goals and/or themes for the year.  I really like what Ana has to say about lightening up, and I could easily claim that as my own.  What I like about a theme is that it ties disparate areas of life together under one umbrella.  But the fact that I can't really come up with one that links organically the hodgepodge of things I'd like to work on suggests maybe that's not the right approach for this moment in my life.

Ditto the quarterly goals of Laura Vanderkam.  Oh, don't get me wrong:  I think she's absolutely right that smaller goals makes more sense than grandiose resolutions.  But it seems disingenuous for me to make a goal for next fall, when I have no idea what next fall will actually bring (I might be looking for a new house, I might be on the job market, my mother's health might take a turn again, etc). When I work with students on year-long projects and they have to come up with a title and a plan, I'm always very clear to them that it's bureaucracy.  It's a starting point.  No one expects that the finished project will look anything like that preliminary sketch.  Life is no different.

There are many things I'd like to do with my time in the next year.  And to encourage some of those happenings, I'm going to focus on establishing some activities and routines that can be scheduled. I'm also going to think small, rather than big; concrete, rather than abstract.  Big grandiose plans are so overwhelming or unrealistic I'll barely get started or will get frustrated and stop (i.e. read all the novels of Virginia Woolf this year!), but small daily habits.  Perhaps it's because I'm an academic and have three distinct rhythms and schedules for the year, right now I'm going to think most about spring semester (January through April).  And then check in with myself, revisit, and consider the summer.

*

When I need to be, I'm obsessively goal-oriented; that's what got me through grad school, infertility treatment, completing a book manuscript for tenure, etc.  There's something very addictive about all this planning (I want to be better at everything!  let's go!) but I'm not sure it's healthy for me.  If there's anything I want (see above about themes!) it's being calm and content, as a person, in my relationships, and at work.  That's not so much something I can do but I can foster the circumstances in which it is more likely to occur.  That will take some more thought.

*

On the concrete side of things:

1. I'm going to continue to schedule alone time with both my kids.  With LG this requires actual scheduling with a calendar.  We have plans to see The Sound of Music at the theater here in February, and I'd also like to schedule time to go to a women's athletic event (gymnastics?).  On a smaller scale, we've been watching The Gilmore Girls together.  She's said she'll help me with cooking, so I'll have her plan some menus we can do together.  And although I'm reluctant to do more on the computer, I do think we'll start doing 'words with friends' or something as a way to do a game on a smaller scale.  It was great doing a 1000-piece puzzle over break, but we don't have that kind of dedicated time.

I'll take Tiny Boy to some local (free!) children's events.  But what's critical for me here is actually putting them on the calendar.  This will help (a) having a plan for the weekend and (b) reminding myself that we really do do a lot as a family.  They might just go in pencil right now, but I'd like a visual look of the 'balance' of my life for the next months.  I'm also going to sign him up for tumbling classes.  He likes it.   It will give him something structured to do on the weekends, and give me a break.

2. There's more I can say about exercise, cooking, reading, socializing...pretty much every area of my life.  (I know; too much!)  For now I want to sit down with my calendar and start filling it out.  And hack off some things to do for the next week, before the semester starts.  Ready set go!

*
Finally, I'l take a cue from Mel.  If you're here and don't regularly comment, please do say hi!  I've been blogging here for ~7 years so my audience has shifted.  If there's anything you'd like me to write about, let me know.  And, a question for you:  if you're one of the five people in America who still uses a landline (me!), who is your provider and are you happy with it?

Busy, Tired, Blah Blah

So this getting out of the house by 7:45 am?  Whoa.  Although it's only 30-35 minutes earlier than we used to leave in the mornings, it turns out to make a big difference.  We're not running late or anything, but I'm losing about 45 minutes of sleep.  I need to go to bed earlier.  But, yeah, too much work, need to chill out, etc.

The upside is that even after dropping off LG, I have time to read Tiny Boy a story in his classroom and still make it home by 8:30ish, so I'm gaining 30 minutes of work time.  I'm sorry Tiny Boy has extra daycare time, but he doesn't seem bothered by it, and maybe once a week we could go grab breakfast together for a treat.  (His school is across the street from her school, so it doesn't make any sense to go home between.)

His sleep, with melatonin, continues to be better on the whole.  I'd say great--and bedtime itself certainly is--except last week involved long stretches of wakefulness (like up to an hour) in the middle of the night.  That seems to be done; he's mostly sleeping 8:00 pm to 7:00 am (give or take 15 minutes), waking only once in the 3-5 window when he comes into my bed, not napping, and not ultra crabby.  I don't like that the kid needs melatonin supplements...but everything in our household is more pleasant.

Work is going to kick my ass this semester.  The real issue is this independent study, which is basically comparable to teaching another class (at least in terms of prep...won't involve much grading).  Note to self:  do not do that again.

I'd say something more profound but it's now 9:40, LG is tucked in for the night, and I need to follow suit...

The Myth of 168 Hours

Because it's the beginning of the semester, I thought I'd start another time tracking exercise on Monday.  Then LG came home early from camp and stayed home for the rest of the week.  Thanks to two friends who live in the neighborhood I was able to go to my first two classes (they came over to check on LG once an hour for the 5 hours I absolutely needed to be on campus) and I managed to get all the rest of the urgent stuff done on Friday morning thanks to a babysitter (Tiny Boy was also home, due to cleaning day at his daycare).  Needless to say, I didn't actually end up tracking my time. What I did do was map out in general terms what my weeks look like.  What became abundantly clear is it's not really useful to think of my week as having 168 hours.

Like most mothers of children in daycare, I have roughly 8:45-4:45 Monday through Friday to use for work.  And after the kid pick up and the feeding and the bedtimes times two, I have approximately an hour each night before I go to bed; I read for about half of that (now it's material I need for work, though I'd prefer not to read with a pen in hand) and then watch a sitcom (22ish minutes!), currently Friends, while I wait for Lunesta to kick in.  If I needed less sleep, or had kids who slept more, I'd have more flexible time in the evenings (indeed, when LG was Tiny Boy's age, she went to bed 6:30-7:00 pm!!!).  I use extra paid childcare for evening events (roughly four times during the semester) and a few hours on alternating weekends.  I anticipate having a bit more time in the mornings soon, as LG will need to be driven to school at 7:45 (I have no idea how that's going to happen...that's about as early as she ever wakes up).  But, still, how will it all get done?

My job responsibilities at the moment include:  teaching two writing intensive courses, directing an undergraduate thesis, directing a graduate independent study (that requries A FUCKLOAD of rereading and some new reading), being on two committees (one is a search committee, save me), acting as program director, which involves weekly/biweekly meetings with other program directors, overseeing a student organization, overseeing an intern (which should make my life easier, but still, MEETINGS!), redoing the undergraduate curriculum.  And then I have six writing projects in various states of disarray, plus two grant proposals that are due this week and then one in mid-October, and I think I forgot about the other graduate students whose committees I am on (three? four? they're hard to keep track of).  I think that's it?

So really I shouldn't be writing this.

How Do Folks Spend Their Time

So in conjunction with teaching Meg Wolitzer's Ten Year Nap, I shared research from the ATUS mostly to illustrate that the assumption that SAHMs spend more time interacting with their kids than moms who work outside the home is pretty much unfounded (at least to the extent that my students purported).

But it did sort of leave me wondering what it is that people do all day.  I need to look at the data more closely...but my sense of my time is so different from the average even of other nonmarried parents (I realize nonmarried doesn't actually mean NO OTHER ADULT IN THE HOUSE) but still.

Just an observation that I'm too tired to spin out right now, because it's 9:18 and LG just went to bed, and I'd like to be asleep within the hour so I'm going to stop writing this and watch Parenthood.  Good night.

Having My Nights Back

After therapy last week, I decided it was in my whole family's best interest to cut Tiny Boy's nap entirely.  While the verdict is still out on what it does to his night sleep (and therefore mine)*, it is unquestionably better for my nights.  It is also better for having time for LG.  And making bedtime less of a stressful event all around.

See, it's pretty hard to go from 7 am to 10:30 pm without a real break or leisure to speak of.  And I was going from kid drop off to work to kid pick up to making dinner and chasing children and several hours of bedtime and being generally resentful that my son was going to bed AFTER I wanted to go to bed, and I wasn't reading anymore and if I watched TV it was in like 15 minute stretches with the sound off in the complete dark.  And I know that once school starts--all too soon--I'll actually need to work at night and my own sleep sucks enough that I will not stay up later or get up earlier.  That was all fine and good during grad school but not as a real adult, and tenured person, with children.

So right now, I'm risking insomnia for the guarantee of having my nights back.  Which, in practical terms, means (a) I spend time with my daughter, (b) I can clean up the kitchen a bit, (c) I can actually bathe when kids are in the house, and (d) I have actual leisure time in increments larger than 15 minutes, which, contra to Laura Vanderkam yet again, actually matters to me.  While I'm all for making the most of those spare change minutes, it's just not the same thing as having an hour of quiet after the kids go to bed.

I'll keep you posted, but the past three nights have been pretty darn good.











* he seems to go for more total hours (closer to 12, instead of 9-10) but with an additional waking/mommy calling, which sort of sucks in that it sets me up for the potential to be awake ALL FUCKING NIGHT

Lessons in Time Management (Redux)

(or, another post brought to you by my hands-free pumping bra)

I find myself thinking of Dr. Gorgeous lately.  Not in the post-infertility sort of way.  In the early 40s working mama sort of way.  See, it has occurred to me that I don't really have many role models.  My female senior colleagues either don't have kids, or their kids are so much older (like, undergraduates and beyond) that we're not on the same planet.  And my friends, well, they're as harried as I am or more so.  Dr. Gorgeous--at least from an outsider's perspective--has her shit together.  Like, she runs her own very successful practice in its multiple locations and lectures at the med school and has kids and a husband and runs races and manages to show up to work perfectly coiffed even for transfers at 7:30 in the morning (I mean, there was that one day her nail polish was chipped and I've seen her in exercise garb because she forgot her skirt, but you get the gist).  Why can't I be like that?  Or maybe, if you don't know me very well, do I look like that, too?

*

Yesterday was pretty awesome in that regard.  I'd gone to bed early, using the motto that got me through my PhD comps ("if you're not working, you need to be sleeping"), got the kids out the door without any drama by 8:20, was seated at my desk just before 9:00; dealt with some email, made a handout for class; taught; pumped, dealt with various crises over email, ate lunch; noticed I was getting squirrely so took a walk around my building (which is large enough, with four "wings," that it feels like a fucking airport); came back, met with a couple students; taught my class; picked up kids, fed them dinner (that I'd cooked the night before), played with them, put them to bed; watched a bit of TV on Hulu and went to bed myself at 9:45.  Woke with Tiny Boy at 12:00ish, 2:00ish, 5:00ish (was that really all?) and for the day at 7:15.  Mama?  Mama?  MIL.  (stage directions:  baby flapping wildly in the crib)

*   

I went back to my old therapist last week.  Felt like I needed to check in.  I made the appointment back in early December, when all the insanity with my sister went down and I was having major anxiety issues (which may or may not have been related to milk let down) and decided it was worth keeping it as a just-in-case.  She said I need to be really efficient.  She said it's all about balance.  Like:  writing this is not a bad use of my time.  None of that is particularly earth-shattering, but it was nice to hear someone else say it.

*

I am keeping a mental list of the stuff I'm not doing that I "should" do or that I'd "like" to do and trying to figure out ways to accomplish (or not).  (1) Decided, once I research it, I'm going to get someone to deep clean my house once a month or so; it's worth the money, at least for a short time.  (2) Much as I should be exercising that's not really something that's going to happen right now, at least not in any sustained way but (3) doing a few yoga poses throughout the day is more than manageable.  (4) I miss painting but I'm not going to carve out time to paint; I will, however, suggest it as an activity that LG and I do on our Fri/Sat time after the boy goes to bed, in lieu of Monopoly or, her favorite activity, "googling about" something, which is generally Harry Potter.  (5) I adore one of my collaborators but there is no way I can talk to her on the phone on a weekly basis, as that's time I would rather be writing toward our project, not yapping about it.  Again.

*

Dealing with random requests from students is my absolute least favorite part of my job.  Because it shouldn't be a part of my job.  Understand, I don't mean my ACTUAL students asking for my time, although I need to be more careful about how I spend it.  I mean shit like random people who have NEVER TAKEN  A CLASS WITH ME email to see if I'd "like" to give them feedback on their work.  That's only slightly more annoying than my FORMER students emailing me PORN they'd like me to read (no, I'm not joking).  If you want my time, come to my office hours.  That's what they're for.

*

Okay, that 15 minutes is up.  Must comment on the poems.  Lots and lots of poems.  Some of them make me want to poke my eyes out with a fork.  Some of them, thankfully, make me feel like my job actually might mean something.