I made it to sleep probably around 11:45 last night. Hotel time can be me time and I was enjoying reading random articles online to unwind. Today, Wednesday, can really best be described as a half day for work. There were a lot of personal care items. Fun, though they do add up. Another take-away: I need to learn to be more productive when I am on the road. The trouble is I dislike scheduling calls when I am anywhere but my desk. I want to be able to focus, and type without distractions, and listen on my headset and all that. But if I can only schedule calls when I’m at my desk, this drastically limits my availability, and if I’m trying to interview busy people, they may not be up for talking then.
Anyway, here’s how I spent Day 3 of the 168 Hours Time Tracking Challenge:
6:45 – 8:15 – up relatively early, but then decide to drift in and out for the next 90 minutes. This is so my guilty business travel treat.
8:15-8:30 – up, dress.
8:30-9:30 – run to/in/from Central Park. It was a gorgeous New York morning, with the sun shining and the temperatures not yet too hot. Humorously, I was stopped multiple times by international visitors needing directions to various things. I guess I looked like I knew where I was going? As I was heading out the door, a friend texted to ask if I could run later. I like to say yes when I can, so I decide it’s just going to be a double-run day.
9:30-9:40 – get McDonald’s breakfast and coffee, probably negating all running-related calorie deficits.
9:40-10:10 – in hotel, shower, dress, pack.
10:10-10:30 – walk to Penn Station
10:30-10:50 – buy ticket, work in station.
10:50-12:15 – work on train. Wrote draft of a Verily piece, edited the City Journal piece, dealt with some more scheduling, etc.
12:15-12:50 – through station, get car, drive home.
12:50-1:05 – try to make self look presentable. Baby is not going down for his nap. I go in to try to help situation and probably make it worse. However, I hear he has quieted down by 1:10, so really he just needed to fuss it out.
1:05-1:30 – FB Live! That link goes to my author page. Please “like” to follow along!
1:30-2:00 – grab quick lunch (leftover chicken salad). Little work tasks.
2-2:30 – phone call re PA Conference for Women
2:30-2:40 – small tasks again
2:40 – 4 – drive to Massage Envy, get my 60-minute massage. Let’s just say my neck and back were a wreck. I try to go once a month (with my membership).
4-4:20 – drive to Haverford, meet friend.
4:20-5 – run around nature trail. 3.75 miles. It was hot! I totaled about 8 miles for the day. While running twice seems a bit much, I know it probably won’t happen for the rest of the work week.
5-5:50 – drive home, more work.
5:50-6:10 – pick up 9-year-old at swim
6:10-6:20 – hanging out with kids, mostly
6:20 -7 – all eat dinner together (nanny cooked). Battle children over eating a fettuccine chicken casserole. They like chicken, and pasta, and cheese, but putting them together is an abomination.
7-8 – clean up, figure out 6-year-old’s birthday party stuff. This involves a fair amount of work.
8-8:40 – pack for tomorrow, start laundry, kid snacks.
8:40-9:30 – kids to bed, read to/with them. This takes a lot longer than I always think it will!
9:30 and on — lots of work to crank through tonight, since I’ll be heading to the airport around noon tomorrow.
How is your time tracking going? Are you sticking with it? What are you learning?
“Putting them together is an abomination.” Sums up my pizza casserole experience. I am always amazed by how much you get done in pockets of time. This is something I have never been able to do. I have to have 10 good minutes to prepare for activities. I need transition times. I think that’s why after school is making me nuts. It’s just a hurry up and wait situation. Now that I have older kids, I even lay in the bed and drink coffee for 10 minutes and get my bearings before officially waking up and beginning my day.
I have to say, your lazy hotel morning and run through Central Park sounds lovely! I’m more of a walker, but today was a pretty good day on the exercise front as well.
https://strictlybythebook.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/168-hours-day-3/
Good morning on Day 4 from the UK! I had been so excited for this week that I started tracking a week early as a warm-up 🙂 I figured it would be more difficult to kid myself over a fortnight than one week and sure enough I have tracked more ‘bleagh’ time doing nothing in particular this week than last. But I am definitely learning more about myself, trying to make a comment at the end of each day on how I felt at different times as well as just what I did. It is also nice to see that I have made some progress in comparison to the last Challenge week, especially getting more sleep and working out more frequently.
My son thinks that most of my cooking is an abomination. 😀
I’m reading about your double run, as I think about how I really don’t want to exercise right now! This is my first time commenting, but I’ve been lurking all week and tracking my time. Seeing your sched. has shown that my equally-fragmented day isn’t so much a problem I need to solve but a reality I need to work with. I am also a writer and find that the words flow best when I’m locked into the zone of whatever project I’m working on. Unfortunately the times when I can do that are few and far between. Today, I’ll be able to concentrate on fiction for the first time in almost two weeks. Big blocks! Yay! Would love to read your piece about work at home moms, as I’ve been one for almost 20 years! Will you be posting it on your blog? Am going to try and watch yesterday’s FB vid on my lunch break. Thanks for a great and insightful week!
@Elizabeth – thank you for participating in the challenge! Fragmentation is not a problem in and of itself unless it is a problem — meaning you’re not doing the things you want to do. But personally, I know I get limited focused blocks so I need to seize them. And figure out what other things I can do in shorter blocks. Good for you for working on fiction!!
I chuckled at the dinner. We are currently in a phase of “Let S pick a vegetable for dinner,” which inevitably he does not eat. *shrug*
I am working on being more detailed in tracking my time at work. I find I get sucked into the internet!