Welcome to Day 3! I hope the time tracking is going well for everyone.
Yesterday, I worked until 6, then cooked dinner (chicken and rice). The big kids and I ate this around 6:30. The 17-year-old took off for his tutoring gig at around 6:45, and the 15-year-old and 13-year-old and I hung out talking for a bit, until the 15-year-old cleaned up the dishes (his night; I helped some).
After that there were 90 minutes of amorphous 5-year-old time. He wanted me to watch him play some video game for a while, we wandered around the house, I got my laundry out at some point, etc. I gave him a 5-minute bath (we call these “world’s quickest bath” for nights when they won’t be long play baths) and he went to his room at 8:30.
We did Legos for about 30 minutes again – a Spiderman set this time. Meanwhile, the 9-year-old came home and went up to play on the Xbox for a while. He is not supposed to be on screens after 8:30, but since he didn’t get home until 8:40…I didn’t go enforce it. Anyway, after Legos and a very quick story I sat with the 5-year-old. He was asleep in about 5 minutes. Then I went and printed some things for the 17-year-old, dealt with various things (who knows what) and so forth.
Around 9:30 I was in the 9-year-old’s room because he and the 13-year-old were having a discussion about summer camp. The 9-year-old has been to sleepaway camp; the 13-year-old has not, but she just agreed to go with a friend for a week, so they were discussing what you pack, what bathrooms tend to be like, etc. I joined this conversation, then the 9-year-old announced that he wanted to take a bath instead of a shower. Since it was his birthday eve, I decided this was OK, so he went and took a bath with a bath bomb (with a glow-in-the-dark toy inside it) in my tub.
He went back to his room a little after 10. I said goodnight to all the big kids, went to my room and read/scrolled/etc. More scrolled really. I brought up a copy of the Economist, but didn’t have the energy to read it. I was asleep at 11.
I woke up, on my own again, at 5:45. I think I’m hearing the heater kick in or something. Anyway, this time I did not fall back asleep, so I got up at 6:15 and showered. This was supposed to be a quick rinse due to my haircut (with shampoo) later in the day but somehow it took as long as usual. I made coffee at 6:30, got the 13-year-old up at 6:40, then made my breakfast. As on the previous day, I took her down to the bus stop at 7:12. I was back at the house around 7:22. I got the big boys up, managed to work for about 30 minutes (hey, the little boys were still asleep!), then made birthday pancakes at 8 for my newly minted 10-year-old.
He liked his pancakes, as did the 5-year-old. I spent the next 30 minutes or so getting them ready and sorting through the growing mail pile on the counter. At least it is less big now! I drove them to school at 8:45. I stopped by the grocery store at 9:10, was back in the car and home at about 9:25. I worked for an hour, then it was back in the car to go to my 10:30 haircut.
The place is 4 minutes from the house, and I love the people and the place itself is lovely but…I wish my hair cut itself. I’m not one of those people who ever gets into a salon visit! I got home at 11:30 with fluffy blow dried hair, worked on various things (mostly email) for 30 minutes while eating lunch that I’d heated up (leftovers), then did the BOBW Patreon meet-up from 12-1. After that I did more email, then did a BB interview from 1:30-2. I did a few more tasks, then started working on something I’m writing on how I spent all 8784 hours of 2024 (because yes, I know!).
At 3:00 I went for a short walk outside. I intended to work again after, and did for a bit, but people were coming home, and the 17-year-old texted about going back to the doctor (he is still not feeling great). I tried to make a sick visit appointment online and the system wouldn’t let me. I called and was on hold for a while, and put in my number to be called back. An hour later I’m still waiting!
I walked down to get the 10-year-old (!!) from the bus stop at 3:50. We walked back together, and now I’ve been working since 4 on. I’ll probably stop by 6 again and then tonight we will have a little birthday celebration! Turning 10 is a milestone…and it’s also interesting to think that I have records of how I have spent my time since he was 3 months old.
Let me know how the time tracking is going and anything you’ve observed.
Tuesday
6 cook dinner/blogs
6:30 eat w/big kids, hangout
7 kids/clean/laundry, AK
7:30 watch H play/scroll/email
8 H bath, hangout H
8:30 Legos w/H
9 sit w/H, J papers/measure
9:30 chat camp w/A, R, then A’s bath!
10 kids down, scroll/read/relax
10:30 scroll/read/relax, ready bed
11 sleep
Wednesday
5:45 up on own
6 lie in bed, up, shower
6:30 coffee, R up, eat b-fast
7 clean, drive R/van, J, S up
7:30 work
8 make pancakes, boys, sort mail
8:30 sort mail, in car/drive boys, A
9 drop H, McCaffreys, home
9:30 work
10 work, drive
10:30 haircut
11 haircut, drive
11:30 work/lunch
12 work (BOBW Patreon)
12:30 work (BOBW Patreon)
1 work/email/etc.
1:30 work (BB)
2 work/files, work
2:30 work (printing)
3 walk outside, work
3:30 try make appoint, get A
4 back, work
4:30 work
Photo: The Christmas tree came down today, but this was not my job
Nice to see the Christmas tree up so long. Some friends in the south of Italy keep them up until Candlemas on 2nd February! Always good to prolong the Christmas cheer 🙂
I’m curious how everyone else here is doing the actual entering. Opening up the spreadsheet is easy when you’re working at a computer, but less so e.g. on the weekends, or on holiday. I managed to save Laura’s spreadsheet in Numbers format so I can open it on my phone (and it syncs over iCloud, back to the computer). It can be a bit finicky using the spreadsheet on the phone, but is sometimes much easier than opening up a computer. I think I probably do about 50% of the entering on a phone. I do wish someone would make an app for this! 🙂
@Frank – that sounds like a good system. Since I work from myself, and work from home, my laptop is available at night and on weekends, so I just enter the info in same as always. If I’m going somewhere for 24 hours and don’t want to bring my computer I will just email myself notes on how I spent my time and reconstruct it on my laptop later. I can also remember my time pretty well after 10 years of doing this so if it’s been less than 24 hours since I last checked in I can almost universally recall what I did. (I basically have a time tracker going in my brain, if that makes sense…)
I actually don’t have much time wasted starting from Day 2.
The time that I spent on working is basically the same as I expected.
@Yukun – excellent!
I appreciate your notes about the time with the 5 year old that was a little bit of everything. Our set of 5 ranges from 15 down to twin 7 year olds and I find that after they’re home from school, the time is very splintered. Everyone needs something and those somethings are usually just a couple minutes long. It makes it a challenge to track what I actually DID besides “help kids with what they needed”. Encouraging to know I’m not the only one. And that this is a season.
@LeeAnn – yep, there is a lot of amorphous kid care time. I put “kids etc.” on a lot of entries!
If you are still time tracking in 8 years, you will have a complete record of (basically) your new 10 year’s entire childhood and how much time you spent with him!!! And if you are still tracking in 13 years, you will have a complete record of how much time you spent with your little guy! That is SO COOL! I feel like that would be SUCH interesting data – how much time do we really spend with our kids? Of course I am applying this to my own life and already feeling guilty that I have probably spent a bit more time with certain kids than others just by nature of life, activities, other kids in the home, etc. So cool to have that data tho!!
@Molly – I do like the idea of having such a complete data set. I kind of wished I’d started a few months earlier so I would have had the 10-year-old’s entire life, but hey…
How eye-opening this is! In these few short days I’ve had at least 2 revelations…… 1) I spend way too much time trying to sleep/not sleeping and 2) I’m spending way too much time on a volunteer activity that I don’t even really want to do. So…… I’m going to embark on some sleep hygiene measures and I’m going to gradually and gracefully back out of this volunteer thing as soon as I finish what I’m already committed to doing.
@Rebecca – those are both important and very useful observations!