When I do workshops, I always like to have a few people track a week ahead of time. The goal is to see how people in a particular organization spend their hours, so I can make my presentation as useful as possible. Curiously, some people charged with doing this simply do not track their weekends. They’ll track the whole work week, and even put stuff in that they probably don’t intend for public consumption (sex, bathroom breaks — meaning it’s not that they’re really worried about privacy) but they don’t do the weekend. It’s like the whole idea of tracking a weekend seems wrong.
I get it. BUT…weekends are a big part of life. If you work a normal full-time job, the bulk of your leisure time and/or family time will occur on the weekend. Knowing where this time goes can help people maximize the fun stuff and minimize the not-fun stuff. Tracking the weekend can also remind people that they have leisure time, which can go a long way toward changing any woe-is-me stories.
Anyway…I went to bed last night by 11:30. Here’s how today went:
6:00 – heard 2-year-old. He quieted down so I went back to sleep.
6:30 – heard him again. Husband got up and bought the whole season of Blaze from Amazon. No commercials. Back to bed.
7 – 2-year-old tired of Blaze and went to wake 6-year-old up. Miraculously, she was OK with this, and they played happily for half an hour, during which I continued to sleep.
7:30 -8 – up for good. Helped 6-year-old read the 2-year-old a story. She did so well at it! She was sounding out the words, including tough ones like “notice.”
8-8:45 – back to visit Daddy for a family snuggle. There were children crawling all over us. I think I dozed again for about 5 minutes in there.
8:45-9:15 – made and ate family breakfast. French toast, bacon, freshly ground coffee, etc. Yum.
9:15-9:37 – helped get 10-year-old, 6-year-old, and 2-year-old out the door with my husband for haircuts, a museum visit, fish-purchasing, etc. I got into my running clothes.
9:37-9:52 – ran 1.5 miles on treadmill. I wanted to run more but I had places to be.
9:52-10:15 – quickly got ready, got 8-year-old ready, and got in the car.
10:15-11 – drove to Pottstown, PA
11-3:30 – epic wrestling meet. My son had 5 matches — which the coach apologized for and said would never happen again — and many of them were quite hard. These were really rough opponents, but one time in particular I noticed that even when my kid was almost pinned, and there was really no way he could win, he would refuse to put his shoulders down. The opponent had to keep pushing the whole minute. He got scraped up, he had two matches back-to-back, he was exhausted. But he toughed it out. He didn’t even get upset about losing 4 of 5 matches. I was so proud of him. I was also an anxious wreck trying to count seconds through these matches. If anyone reading this is a wrestling parent, you know what I’m talking about. Watching your small child in hand-to-hand combat is not for the squeamish. Anyway, this was emotionally fraught, but he was wrestling for a grand total of 15 minutes out of 4.5 hours. So I did 3 hours of work and read on and off for the other 90 minutes. (Winter, by Ali Smith. Not really enjoying it).
3:30-4:30 – drove home, stopping to get gas along the route.
4:30-5 – met “Cuddles,” the new clown fish, unpacked. Husband took off to do random errands (and I assume get some alone time after having 3 of 4 children all day). I tried to wrap the 2-year-old’s birthday presents but he wouldn’t leave me alone. Gave him my phone. Worked like a charm.
5-5:35- got into running clothes, and got back on the treadmill for another 2.5 miles, bringing my total for the day to 4 miles.
5:35- 5:50 – wrote up log entries (that is, this post).
5:50 – 6:50 – wrapped presents, puttered around vaguely looking at magazines, cracked open a beer. Basically waited for my husband to get home with the pasta so I could cook kids dinner. Eventually I plated all the fruits and vegetables, started water boiling for pasta, etc.
6:50-7:20 – he came home, we put away groceries, put the pasta in the boiling water, and sat down with the kids while they had dinner.
7:20-7:45 – watched Blaze with 2-year-old
7:45-8 – read 2-year-old stories and put him to bed.
8 – now watching the Eagles play (taped from earlier start) and making chicken wings and nachos. Time to relax!
How was your Saturday?
Photo: The coaches write the kids’ match numbers on their hands so they can remember. Five is a lot!
I was expecting to like Autumn by Ali Smith and really couldn’t get into it either…
I have a hard time time-tracking my weekends because they are so fragmented (start something, kid interruption, resume, or forget what I was doing and do something else, kid interruption, repeat). So if I do “event” like things that are several hours, I can track that, but I have a hard time with everything inbetween that happens in 5-15 minute increments. At work on the other hand, I usually work in longer chunks, so even if I forget to record it, I can remember what I was doing the last few hours!
@Emma – it can be harder to get in the mindset of weekend tracking. I know that it’s partly that I am in the habit of doing it that I notice oh, at 12:30 I was eating, and at 1:30 I was reading and I can approximate from there. But also there’s the interesting phenomenon that because we can account for our time at work, it seems like work takes more space than it does. Something to think about!
I attended a free day at the local park district yesterday. I did a 1/2 hour core work, 1/2 hour yoga, and 1/2 hour spin class. I won a 1 Hour Personal Training Session during their drawing. It was a really good event even though I am not sure paying for membership will fit my budget. However, I did not make any commitment so it was a great morning! I also returned some clothes to Kohls in the morning.
During the afternoon and evening, I only recorded playing 1 hour of Luminosity games and making a new recipe with my husband for dinner. I am not sure where the rest of the time went.
I spent eight hours at a dance competition to watch my daughter dance four times. I took my crocheting, but I’m surprised at how few people bring anything to do. With one break of 2 hours between dances (but the competition wasn’t near our home) four of us moms brought walking shoes and walked for an hour outside before hitting a bakery for breakfast. So the day wasn’t wasted. I got to support my daughter, exercise, spend time with friends, eat out, and craft! It was time well spent, but did need to be planned ahead.
@LaDawn – good for you! I completely agree that there can be a lot of time in between events at kids’ athletic/performing events. And while most of us do want to watch our kids (and even their close friends) there are often bits of downtime. Hanging out with friends, exercising, working, reading, crocheting, etc. are all great ideas. Don’t just suffer through!