168 Hours Challenge Day 1

Hello time-loggers! I’m excited to start this project of tracking our 168 hours together. I’ll start posting my log now, and will update this post several times through the day. Feel free to chime in whenever you want with thoughts, observations, etc.

6:30 – wake up

6:30-6:55 – feed baby

6:55-8 hang out with baby (3-year-old is sleeping in) and get into running clothes

8 – 8:45 -nanny shows up, I’m out the door to go for 3.5 mile run on nice crisp early fall (or is it late summer?) morning.

8:45-9:05 – walk 3-year-old to preschool

9:05 – 12 :05 – write draft of speech for In Good Company event on Wednesday, write and submit HuffPo blog.

12:05 -12:25  emails, blog update while feeding baby

12:25-12:45 draft choir fundraising letter

12:45-12:55 order Halloween costumes (why let it sit on the to-do list? I’m knocking them off during this 168 Hours Challenge)

12:55-1:10 – check out long races I might sign up for. Get distracted by Runners World story on whether the first marathon was really 26 miles, etc.

1:10-1:25 – regroup, practice speech

1:25-1:30 – heat lunch in microwave. Hold plank pose (thanks for reminding me, Jennifer!)

1:30- 2:15 – work on speech, check out Men With Pens review of 168 Hours and commence glowing.

2:15-3:00 – Happenings Q&A live radio show with Frank Carmichael. He enthusiastically endorsed the book and asked if I’d always been so organized. I told him I was glad he couldn’t see my desk!

3-3:20- Emails, etc.

3:20-3:30 shower, get dressed (the benefits of having a home office… didn’t really get to that until now!)

3:30-4:30 – Work on editing draft of a novel. Yes, a novel. Fiction. Looking for potential test readers in the near future, so email me if you’re interested.

4:30-4:50 – feed baby and greet husband who shows up at home unexpectedly early

4:50-5:50 – more on novel. Here’s to the 168 Hours Challenge for encouraging me to carve out time for completely speculative projects!

5:50-6 – quick emails, will post again later tonight

6-6:15 – hanging out with kids, finish feeding them

6:15-6:30 – everyone at dinner table as Michael and I have salad

6:30-7:00 – cooking dinner with Michael and then eating it.

7-7:05 – dishes

7:05-7:30 – baths and getting people into PJs

7:30-7:55 – Dora while snuggling with kids on couch

7:55-8:10 – bottle for baby, then try to get him to go to sleep. Currently crying it out. We shall see how this goes…

8:10-8:40 – work. Baby was asleep. Then he somehow gets back up.

8:40-9 – baby comforting. Goes down again.

9-10:45 – read, Time magazine article on education (that’s work for me; I also have an education blog called Gifted Exchange), and Siblings Without Rivalry (not work). Michael puts Jasper to bed. Jasper doesn’t really go down until 10:45 (see previous posts about children who just don’t need to sleep). Michael and I talk some in here about ways of talking with children and defusing tantrums.

10:45-11 – talk with Michael

11 – try to go to sleep but takes a bit.

Links to other days:

168 Hours Challenge Day 2

168 Hours Challenge Day 3

168 Hours Challenge Day 4

168 Hours Challenge Day 5

168 Hours Challenge Weekend Thread

168 Hours Challenge Wrap-up Thread

13 thoughts on “168 Hours Challenge Day 1

  1. 6:30am Wake up
    6:35 dress, brush teeth, pack bag
    6:40 leave apartment to walk to work
    6:58 clock into work
    7-7:15 stock cups and supplies
    7:15-8:07 fill out student paperwork
    8:07-8:45 break grill area
    8:45-9:00 work coffee station
    9:00-10:30 continue student paperwork/email/discuss with manager
    10:30-11 break grill area again
    11:02 clock out of work
    11:06 arrive at Presser (music building) to grab papers
    11:15 arrive at class in Peabody
    11:15-12:30 discuss Shalimar the Clown in class
    12:30-12:45 walk from Peabody to Bachelor
    12:45-2:00 Disabilities Studies class, daze off and make work schedule for the month of October
    2:00-2:08 wait for bus to take me back to Peabody
    2:08-2:10 ride bus
    2:10-2:15 discuss teaching plan with teacher
    2:15-2:50 watch student projects
    2:50-3:10 teach ethos, pathos, logos
    3:10-3:20 walk from Peabody to CPA
    3:20-3:30 look up homework for music class I teach (with another prof)
    3:30-3:47 play on computer, watch teacher teach, make this list

    I am an senior undergraduate at Miami University, where I am taking 22 credit hours, undergraduate associating 2 three credit hour classes (aka a teacher’s aide), working 30 hours a week where I’m student manager, writing my thesis, and on the exec board of 4 different organizations. In my spare time, I hang out with friends, write for the newspaper and for enjoyment, and read as many books as possible. Organizing my time would be wonderful. 🙂

  2. Yikes – Already spent 2 hours this Monday on homework help and school support for kids and it is only the 3rd week of school(and 5:40)! How to ignore? minimize? outsource?

  3. 4:45-5am Pray
    5 am-6am skip workout to clean bathroom closet which is not set up for back-to-school mornings
    6-6:40 at the computer–work on this week’s calendar, see where I can put swimming in for my son, check FB for 6 minutes, and answer email
    6:40-7:30–shower and dress, which takes extra time b/c my 3 yr old woke up with a wet pull-up and cried for 10 minutes.
    7:30-8 make breakfast, while scheduling an oil change and eat with my sons
    8-8:50 walk the dog, while the kids scooter and go to bus stop
    8:50-9:20 read 168 Hours (chapter 7), while son plays Leapster to calm down after exercising
    9:20-9:40 read to 3 yr old
    9:45-10 travel to Preschool for “Hello Party”
    10-11 Hello Party–meet parents from last year, and fill out paperwork
    11-11:20 dropped off funeral booklet at church rectory (a volunteer activity)
    11:25-12;15–food shopping, I will be outsourcing this when I return to work next year.
    12:15-12:45 get home to realize I missed the FedEx truck by mere minutes, put food away (need to get help with this too)
    12:45-1:10 make and eat lunch, browse through a magazine
    1:10-2 played games with 3 year old
    2-2:10 made a phone call
    2:15-3:25 took 3 yr old to park with his friend and his mom (my friend) had iced coffee and relaxed
    3:30-3:50 got older son off bus, walked dog
    3:50-4 checked school notices, served snacks and had yogurt myself
    4-4:30 reviewed a school fundraiser while the boys scootered/biked out front, hung up on a recorded message from the 3rd politician who’s called today
    4:30-5 prepped & cooked dinner while getting 7 year old to do HW and put his lunch stuff and backpack/folder away, and talking to husband about his day
    5-5:20 ate dinner, chatted with husband and kids
    5:20 -5:30 we all cleared plates, 7 year old got ready for Karate
    5:30-5:35 realized that there is something wrong with one of the dishwasher functions. I’m hoping that if I leave the buttons alone long enough the button will unstick itself, meanwhile it is full of dirty dishes. Husband took both sons to Karate, so that I can go out to dessert with my cousins tonight
    5:35-5:40 checked the status of the package that I missed,
    5:40-6 decided to peek and see if there was a blog update, and ended up responding with this post, instead of washing the pots that are still sitting in the sink.

    This is such a big change from last weeks log, which contained big chunks of leisure/socializing at the beach, park and BBQ’s all week. Didn’t spend enough time with my kids or husband today, but I have it scheduled in for the rest of the week. I noticed in last week’s log that I’m spending more time than I want to on household ‘stuff’ and am looking at ways to reduce this. Yesterday I prepped the veggies etc for the week’s meals, (with my sons) and made my son’s lunches for the week.

  4. Continuation of the day:

    3:47-4:10 actually pay attention to teacher
    4:10-4:15 run to class that starts at 4:10
    4:15-5:25 class goes over our projects that we’re working on (prof really liked mine 🙂 yay)
    5:25-5:30 prof teaches me how to burn a CD (whoops)
    5:30-5:40 walk to Shriver for quick dinner before a training session
    5:40-5:50 microwave ramen noodles, eat said ramen noodles
    5:50-6:00 socialize with others at training session
    6:00-6:40 Career Fair training session- instead of calming nerves, makes me more anxious for the whole ordeal
    6:40-6:50 walk to Bachelor for STD meeting
    6:50-7:30 go through Career Fair packet and pick out the tables I want to go to, circle them on the map and create a plan
    7:30-8:50 Sigma Tau Delta meeting- very, very productive meeting
    8:50-8:57 get a ride home, get online and type this up.

    I’d say so far I’ve had a pretty successful day. I would like to add in some more things in my day, but I’m not exactly sure where, when, or how I could possibly do this. I really want to add writing into my day, as well as leisure reading. Also, studying for the GRE would be nice…

  5. Wow, looks like I need to be more granular. Tracking mine to the half hour and with seemingly not enough detail. May be the best I can do for now. I even glanced at some time tracking apps out there for my phone. Some look promising and even free. I liked what Laura did on the pre-challenge. Definitely want to think about the week ahead and what you want to accomplish. I may try to make mine look more like the ones I see here tomorrow. Cheers

  6. I will start preparing for teaching when my 3 year old starts a full week of school. That will give me 2 1/4 hours, 5 days a week–to read professional books, and articles and observe at my school, as we have incorporated special education students and team teaching in the classrooms. I have also scheduled doctor’s appointments during those hours, which will also give me extra time to plan, read, and crochet.

  7. 8:00 – 9:15 get ready for the day
    9:15 – 10:15 email and facebook
    10:15 – 12:25 album design work for client
    12:25 – 1:00 grocery shopping
    1:15 – 1:30 plan for weekend trip
    1:30 – 2:30 networking emails for a new marketing plan
    2:30 – 3:20 lunch
    3:20 – 3:30 reading blogs
    3:30 – 4:30 travel to networking meeting (reading on train)
    4:30 – 6:00 networking meeting
    6:00 – 6:30 walk to alumni happy hour
    6:30 – 11:00 alumni happy hour
    11:00 – 11:20 practice dance routine for a class I’m taking
    11:20 – 12:30 facebook, email, read blogs

  8. Experimenting with different time logging methods to see which works best for me (did this once before and found the half-hour breakdown problem exacerbated by my large handwriting), so will start posting logs when I (hopefully) find the Goldilocks fit.

    Meanwhile, I’m appalled to discover how much time I waste waiting for my crotchety old computer to do stuff at glacial speed and then repeatedly rebooting when it freezes or crashes. It always seems like everything takes forever when computers run slow, but in this case it doesn’t just seem that way–it really is taking forever–to the point that I get a lot of reading done waiting for the damn thing to re-start! So it would probably be worth my while to invest some money in a new computer if it’ll save me that much time on a daily basis. I’d also be able to plan more accurately how much time doing anything involving the computer is likely to take me–right now it’s hard to gauge how much extra time to allow for unpredictable but inevitable disasters.

    After reading Laura’s recent post “Is Twitter Work,” I’m doubly discouraged by how much time I spend maintaining my feng shui blog in addition to the time I spend writing the posts. Granted, the crotchety computer makes it all take significantly longer than necessary, but there’s still all the time it takes to do the layout and links and photos for each blog post (definitely NOT one of my core competencies) and then to post notifications of each new post on multiple social networking sites (2 Facebook pages, LinkedIn status update, multiple LinkedIn groups, Yahoo status update, and probably more I should be doing too but have not delved into yet, like Twitter) and via email list (with more time needing to be spent in the near future creating a real email list, not just via my own email account)…possibly all for nothing? Yikes!

    1. Gwen: Get a new computer already! I did about a month ago, and am very happy I did. I forgot how much time I was losing to crashes, etc., because I’d just gotten used to it as normal. It is not normal.
      Second, the social media thing – when you’re launching a business it probably is important to be there, but you have to focus most of your time on what is bringing in the $$. Twitter and FB and even blogging doesn’t necessarily do that (if you want a platform for writing a Feng shui book you need the blog, but that’s a different matter). I am launching an email newsletter because after a lot of research/trial-and-error, Vanderkam Inc has collectively discovered that that is a much better way to keep people updated on things than FB/Twitter/etc.

  9. LOL! You’re right, it’s all too easy to forget that constant computer crashes are NOT normal–and to underline that point, the stars have just aligned in agreement with you: for my birthday last week I received 2 gift certificates to the same spa, one from a group of friends and one from my mom, who just offered yesterday, when she found out about the duplication, to convert hers into a down payment towards something else I might want or need instead…like a new computer!

    Thanks for the social media tip! I’ve been especially troubled by how much of a gamble it is whether or not people happen to see my FB updates, depending on whether or not they happen to be on FB near enough in time to when I happen to post it for it to appear in their News Feeds. After sending out a do-it-myself email notification list (via my Yahoo address book) in conjunction with my first few blog posts, I realized that would be too time-consuming to do every time I posted, so I’ve been researching a few free email list services, but so far they either include advertising in every email or require your mailing address to be included in every email (out of the question, since I don’t have a separate business address from my home address), so I will have to spend some time researching others…

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