A list.
1- Starting off my morning with ~15 minutes of non-fiction reading. And a highlighter pen. And coffee (set the night before, of course).
2- Planning the day in my Hobonichi (using the weekly list + calendar items to plan the day). I’ve never been a ‘plan the night before’ kind of person because my head is so much clearer in the morning.
3- Current ‘usual’ workout timing, which is a start time of ~5:45 am – 6 am, and an end time between 6:30 am – 6:45 am most days. I love it when the kids sleep until I’m done showering.
4- Listening to a podcast on the way to work. I usually pick more motivating titles in the AM and more random/fun things in the afternoon. I get great joy out of refreshing my podcast app each morning to see what’s new.
5- READING during lunch. I can’t do this every day (meetings, work, etc) but when I’m able to, sneaking away to read for 30 minutes while eating is the best. I recognize it’s a little anti-social and I probably could be networking but the rest of my job is so social and I’m talking to everyone all of the time, so this break is really nice (and sometimes needed).
6- Largely unplugged kid time after work. I usually get home at 5:45, and from that time until around 7, I get quality time with the kids (just me; Josh is rarely home until significantly later). I love reading to G, playing with her, and having the other two tell me about their days. SOMETIMES there is fighting which makes this more stressful but I am really working on trying to make it a positive slice of our days.
7- Quiet nursing time w/ G at night. I don’t love our morning session as much — she still asks for it so we still do it but honestly I’m usually antsy about the time and my desire to get to work. But the nighttime one is so nice and it is why I haven’t really tried to wean yet. She’s 18 months so I am 5 months beyond where I went with either of the other two. I know it will end sometime (probably relatively soon) so I am trying to savor it.
8- Eating dinner alone or with Josh while the big kids finish watching a show. This feels like a victory lap at the end of the evening 🙂
9- Reading to the big kids at night. We are currently reading The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island. It’s kept them quite captivated considering there’s almost no conflict and is a very peaceful happy story. Annabel’s class read the first book in the series and she has been obsessed since. I’m not sure it’s C’s favorite but he seems to tolerate it.
10- Reading in bed at night. I’m 80% done with Ayesha At Last and I need to pick my next book! If one of my hold picks is available at the library, that will probably determine what I read, or I may dive into one of the titles on my list randomly.
Read: Field Notes On Love, Daisy Jones and the Six
Almost though: Ayesha at Last
About halfway through: Digital Minimalism
I definitely have routines that are NOT working as well – to delve into in a future post. But routine makes up life, and I am relatively happy with how mine looks right now!
PS: Call is over and looking at my calendar I realized yesterday I only have THREE call weeks left in 2019 even though there are more than 6 months left in the year. I was front-loaded. This makes me very happy and is a very good thing because my GME responsibilities have (obviously) exploded!
9 Comments
Closing my office door and reading for thirty minutes over lunch is one of my sanity-savers. I don’t do it nearly as often as I should, though!
I totally read over lunch too! I’m a teacher so I’m around people all the time. I’m currently reading Pachinko and really enjoying it.
I think taking time for yourself to read instead of using that time to chat with coworkers is a good investment in your sanity! 🙂 I think you are an extrovert but everyone needs some downtime to recharge their battery!
Routines that are working for us is meal planning on Wednesday night and then chopping whatever needs to be chopped for those recipes during nap time on the weekends. I don’t love using nap time to be productive as sometimes I want to rest and relax, too, but it makes evening meal prep so much more enjoyable if I have all the grunt work done ahead of time! I’ve also got our morning routine down to a science. My husband leaves the house with our son at 6:50 so our mornings have to run like clockwork in order for all of us to get out the door but we’ve found a rhythm that works and doesn’t leave me feeling too frantic.
I’m among the lunchtime reading crowd, too! It’s a nice mental pause from work.
My two cents on your summer reading list, I really liked The Gown. Inheritance was interesting/timely/relevant — and great for conversations. My book club is reading it in September. Save Me the Plums was good, though I liked her other memoirs more than this one. All 3 are easy/fast reads.
I need to start reading a bit at lunchtime.
I’m travelling for work at the moment and am reading all the books at the moment – on night 3 and have finished 3 books. Such a luxury to not have kids and any evening commitments.
I just finished The Mother-in-Law – really good fast paced read!
My kids LOVE The Boxcar Children. I do NOT. Luckily Hoopla (one of our libraries digital lending apps) has 161 Boxcar Children audiobooks available. Always. (Hoopla is a service that doesn’t have limited licenses so all their titles are always available). My daughter (9) has probably listened to most of them. My son (5) just started and he has listened to about 20. They are fast and easy to listen to and they are all basically the same (which is only one of the reasons I am not a fan). Having one on in the background while they play is a great way to get through a long afternoon. Maybe your library’s digital app has them too and you can take advantage of them!
Oh, and Hoopla also has Read Along picture books that are very popular with both my kids, especially my 5yo. If you search “read along” they will all come up, even though they are put out by different publishers.
Wow, I love this! Made me happy to read such a positive list. I have also been taking an intentional break for lunch on my non-clinic days (on clinic days I work straight through and eat or not, depending on how I feel, but its worth it to me to get out early). I usually do the NYT crossword during lunch, its a nice mental break and has a hard stop since its eventually done.. If I start reading sometimes I….keep reading (oops).