What I Did Yesterday

Yesterday, Thursday, December 17, 2009, I kept track by stopwatch of my time. It was a long day of 18 hours 18 minutes. The previous night I got to bed fairly early -- I think circa 11:30pm but I'm not sure. Thursday night I headed for bed around 1:30am Friday morning. Counting backwards and allowing for a little unaccounted for time, I must have gotten up Thursday a little before or after 6am.

My time count totaled 1,097.5 minutes. Here in minutes is what I did with them, from low count to high count:

.5% chores (scooped cat litter box and fed cats) 6m
1% after job interview (change clothes & put stuff away) = 11m
4% naps 17m + 10m + 18m = 45m
4% preparing and eating food at home 6m + 14.5m + 27m = 47.5m
4.5% me (e.g., shower, dressing) 25+3+3.5+6.5+12.5 = 50.5m
5% play BookWorm 25m + 32M = 57m
5% prepare for job interview 25m + 33m = 58m
5.5% job interview (a full-time temporary office job) & travel = 60m
6% Facebook 28m + 35m = 63m
8% Revising a short story 15m * 6 = 90m
11% laundry 16+11+5+17.25+26.5+12+17+5+8.75 = 118.5m
13% emailing 12m + 12m + 91m + 26m = 141m
13.5% dining out with Kayle = 150m
18% gift planning esp. online research of digital cameras = 200m

Note: The per cents add up to 99% instead of 100% because I rounded decimal places.

Critique:

1. It was too long a day, and I stayed up too late, till 1:30am Friday. I prefer to get to bed around 10:30pm or even earlier or 11:30 at the latest or no later than 12:30 and to wake up naturally and refreshed any time between 4am and 6am to have some creative writing time before having to do this and that. How did I get off that schedule? Was it the few sips of real coffee I had at A&W on my way to my 2pm job interview? Was it my stubbornness to finish my online digital camera research? Was it a childish resistance to bedtime -- triggered by what? Hmm. Lessons: Do not drink real coffee after early morning hours. Spread tasks like online research over several days if necessary. I procrastinated doing that research and should have started days ago to do it little by little. Learn (somehow) to face bedtime with mindful equanimity.

2. On days I don't do laundry I do a lot more home chores. The kitchen was in pretty good shape yesterday because I gave it some time Wednesday.

3. Again I procrastinated dealing with various red tape problems re Social Security, insurance, Medicare, finances, and suchlike requiring correspondence, phone calls, or completing forms. Lesson: No matter what, set aside at least a quarter hour per day for facing and doing whatever of importance I would most druther procrastinate doing.

4. Since I'm a writer and am heading for a writing career, my day job (or my hunt for one) plus whatever I do on my own to make money (e.g., sell something I want to get rid of on eBay) plus hack writing plus creative writing should add up to a full day's work of 6 to 10 hours. Yesterday my job interview from rehearsing with Kayle to changing out of my dress clothes back to my everyday clothes took 129 minutes or just under 2.25 hours and revising some pages of a short story took 1.5 hours, for a total of 3.75 hours. How might I have shifted 2.25 hours of time use to put in a 6 hour work day? Lessons: Limit BookWorm to 5 minute breaks. Allow less time for FaceBook and for emailing. Better budget online research time.

5. Yet again I did not get any aerobic, strengthening and toning, or limbering exercises done. This is a serious problem. Lack of strength and stamina limits my job choices, limits my accomplishments, and is bad for my health. Lesson: Exercise! Daily! No matter what!

6. My usual aerobic exercise is walking. If I don't do my daily walk, errands don't get done, like chopping some firewood for a neighbor woman with a disability who lives half a mile or so away. Walking outside is harder in winter in snow and slush because my snowboots are lots heavier than my sneakers. Also there is less time for walking because it gets dark early, around 4 to 4:30pm. Lesson: Don't let more than a day slip by without doing errands walking or (in winter) mall walking. What should I cut to get exercise time?

Living a balanced life is difficult.

On the positive side, I had a delightful time with Kayle eating out at Nectars. Our meal was a shared assortment of appetizers plus wine. Such times are important for us. I did my best at the job interview. I did get a little bit of creative writing done. I'll get that short story, now titled "Gus Up North", revised and submitted to a literary magazine by next week while I also continue work on other writing and critiquing projects. I got the laundry done and put away. And I think I found our next digital camera, subject to Kayle's consent -- a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ8. (Doubtless a camera that is both cheaper and better exists, but I've run out of research time to find it.) So all in all a good day.

And so far today at a little past 10am, I've missed meditating, missed a first breakfast of fruit, am late getting showered, shampooed, and dressed, haven't gotten going on drafting one story, revising another, or critiquing another, haven't checked my emails, and so on. As my mama used to say, parroting her neighborhood friends, "I can't win for losing." Living a balanced life is like trying to keep standing on a floating, rolling log.