Time Tracking Days 5-7: THE WEEKEND (and some final thoughts)

Prior time tracking posts from last week: Monday + Tuesday / Wednesday + Thursday

I’m using the Toggl app (free version) which has made time tracking much easier for me than anything I ever tried before. (The screenshots below come from that the app’s desktop version.)

FRIDAY JANUARY 16

This was a clinical day (my 2nd Friday in the new location!).

We left off with Thursday night where I didn’t sleep quite enough (oh well). I had a Pilates class on Friday morning which was nice. I can’t do the school drop-off AND get to the new location anywhere close to on time (they are in completely opposite directions, NE vs SW) and Josh can’t generally drive Fridays so this is the one morning a week that our nanny arrives early (around 7:15 AM) and takes the kids to school.

I ended up treating myself to Sbux on the way to work AND managed to hit publish on a Patreon post and a blog post while I waited for my coffee to be ready (usually I am a Mobile Order person and it’s there waiting for me, but this stop was impromptu when I realized I had the time).

Here’s another “irregular” aspect of Friday — I had a mandatory meeting (about billing/coding, fun fun) at 12 pm between patent blocks so I didn’t have any time to get out to walk, nor did I get to have lunch with colleagues. This was a little bit of a letdown but I mean . . . I survived.

After work in that 1.5 hour block of “dinner, chat with R, etc” I have no idea what I really did, but I did talk to my sister on the phone and ate dinner. I was totally exhausted by this point and finished the evening out with 2 more episodes of Members Only: Palm Beach while G watched the Simpsons and C played a video game, and then we all went to bed.

I slept a lot!

Today was one of those days where I didn’t do many of the habits I aim to do daily at all!! (As opposed to most days when I usually do them all, or close to it). Honestly, I was just too tired in the evening, and there wasn’t a lot of excess or “free” time before that. Luckily, I am anti-streak so this was fine.

SATURDAY JANUARY 17

I woke up on my own a little after 6 and enjoyed a niiiiiice long leisurely AM routine (making up for Friday’s truncated one, I guess!).

G has started tennis on Saturdays, and this day was a glorious opportunity for her to do it IN COOL WEATHER. (Seriously, that just doesn’t happen much here, but it was probably 50s-60s).

I took a walk during tennis, then came home and took A to gym. This was followed by a MONSTER admin block – my email was a disaster and it was time. (Most of this was podcast/book related with some personal/kid stuff sprinkled in.)

I did take a break to meet A’s friend out for lunch (she had an event nearby, so she and her mom met us at Panera with A/C/G), which was a nice little social interlude. And then it was back to work.

I have talked about not liking to work in the evenings (“second shift”). But if I’m being honest with myself, this kind of weekend catchup is not unusual. It’s not every weekend, but it happens. I guess this is my own second shift, and I don’t mind it as long as it’s not alllll the time (and as long as my weekends still contain some rest / restoration / fun time, as I think mine did!).

We ordered (Door Dash) from a Filipino place because Josh was talking with colleagues about it.

The rest of the evening was pretty chill:

Bonus was that I didn’t really put anyone to bed because I fell asleep watching Palm Beach and G fell asleep watching something with Josh and both of us basically passed out simultaneously. (Eye drops went in first though, whew).

SUNDAY JANUARY 18

Did I need to sleep 9.25 hours? No. I can tell because I kept waking up and having crazy dreams about college (fueled by Heart the Lover AND the precollege 8th grade Zoom, I believe).

But, I did. I really enjoy NOT setting an alarm on weekends – it is a major silver lining to be beyond my running days.

(To be clear: I would still rather wake up early and run if that were an option, but since I can’t I might as well savor the rest and more relaxed cadence.)

Clear desk was a major undertaking and also included dealing with the papers on top of my desk (ie, processing the tasks and getting some stuff done that had deadlines). Included in this were some boring things like taxes. (But I also found a check to deposit, so that was good.)

I had a really late breakfast and read the NYT (paper):

I worked right up until it was time to take C to football and brought G with me, too. He played and she read Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

The rest of the day was a bit hectic! A had been invited to a far away sleepover so I spent a long chunk of time driving. Before that, though, I did my planning for the upcoming week + put it up on our whiteboard (and sent everyone pix). We didn’t get to do a full verbal discussion because A was away but it isn’t a terribly complex week so that was fine.

I made dinner super fast because it was book club night (at a neighbor’s). (And I drove the 2 minutes there even though I totally could have / should have walked!).

I had a glass of wine and some Dubai chocolate and we discussed Heart the Lover. This was a really fun one to talk about — and then we all decided to read The Great Gatsby for our next meetup (since there are a bunch of TGG references in Heart the Lover)! THEN I texted my friend from elementary school because I remembered her husband loving that book when we were in high school, and then they wrote me back.

(I have decided that whenever I get the impulse to text someone from my past because I thought of them, I will lean into that impulse. It is always fun!)

I got back from book club and the kids were still up (bc no school Monday). I text-chatted with Kae for a while and browsed some blogs, and then eventually went to bed.

(I know, my sleep habits are NOT what the textbooks say is ideal, because some nights of sleep ARE longer than others in my case. However, I generally don’t overthink it and it all seems to work for me so I am not messing with it.)

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So there you have it! A week of time tracking. I did enjoy this exercise!
In prior rounds of time tracking I sometimes felt like the way I spent my time was altered BY the exercise (observer effect) but I feel like this past week mostly went as it would have anyway (ESPECIALLY with January Energy on board).

TAKEAWAYS:

• it would be great to be more on top of email and admin so that it doesn’t take up the lion’s share of my Saturday, but it is possible to have a decent weekend and also answer a lot of emails.

• I stand by my policy of saying “yes” to most social things whenever possible, impromptu or planned. These are often highlights and the most memorable parts of my weeks/days.

• My writing/creative job takes up a lot of time, and if I don’t have adequate time on my Mon/Weds it’s generally going to bleed over.

• Planning takes actual time! (my monthly list, my weekly plan, etc). I knew that, obviously (it’s a big point I make in my book) but interesting to see where that actually happened in my life. Most of it was on the weekend and I think that’s typical for me.

• That said, it’s often the Inbox Cleanup that takes longer than the actual planning. (I don’t really have a way around this. I felt like everything I responded to on Saturday was worth the time I spent doing it!)

• Ummmm where was the decluttering going to fit? I guess I did actually declutter my desk! And it was definitely an above-average-level-of-activity week in my creative job with all the zooms. But still, I don’t have excess hours lying around. And I WANT to be able to drive my kids around on weekends and sit on the sidelines of sports.

WILL I KEEP TIME TRACKING?

I think I will continue it for another week, but I’m definitely not going to keep posting it (that would probably get old fast for you all, and the recaps are time consuming!).

If nothing else I will definitely continue to do it every season! Thanks to Laura as always for the inspiration!!!