168 Hours - Day 1

So, this probably isn’t the blog you are waiting for, the big vacation blog. I don’t know when I’ll get around to that! But soon, I promise. Actually, I’m leaving Thursday to go to Colorado with my parents, so I’m just going to be even more buried in pictures when I get home. Hopefully I’ll make time for it this week.

I've been reading a time management book called 168 Hours, written by Laura Vanderkam who also writes a gifted blog I follow (Gifted Exchange). I really like it so far. She also has a blog for this book you can find in my blog list to the right. One thing she encourages is to spend a week (168 hours) keeping track of everything you do during the day, and this week, her blog followers are all doing this. I’m glad, because I’ve tried keeping track and kinda let it go by the wayside, so now I feel motivated to follow through and actually record what I do in a week. So, here is my day today, for better or worse:

7:00am – hit snooze

8:15am – wake up, watch the news

8:25am – get a coke, go to computer room, unproductive online time (facebook, personal email, etc)

8:45am – shower/dress for work

9:30am – Leave for work, run through whataburger for coffee I didn’t make time to drink

10:00am – arrive at a middle school to pick up data for work. Finally find office at other side of campus, trapse back to car with a heavy box. Was so hot and sweaty by the time this was done I couldn’t bear to drink my coffee.

10:30am – arrive at university, illegally park so I can carry the box upstairs, repark super far away, and walk to my friend’s office

11:00am – return something to my friend, chat with old advisor for a bit, get suckered into tutoring statistics for the rest of the summer, and leave to walk to my office.

11:45am – emails (probably with a little facebook and chatting with co-workers mixed in)

12:30pm – finalize article revisions (my first journal article was accepted with revisions last week!), with co-worker chatting, facebook, and an unrelated work crisis sprinkled in.

4:00pm – submitted new article draft, emailed to co-authors.

4:20pm – played on internet – facebook and blog catching up. Found this blog and started logging my time for the day.

4:45pm – walked to car and drove home

5:10pm – say hi to Tom, get my rubbermaid tub out of the attic so I can pack it for my camping trip next week.

5:20pm – eat a snack and relax for a bit

5:50pm – put away the mountains of clean clothes we’ve had piled up in the bedroom for longer than I care to admit.

6:30pm – did a few dishes and got out the leftovers for us to eat, eat dinner, watch a Buffy episode on Netflix.

7:30pm – put away one more load of clothes from the dryer.

7:50pm – a little more internet time, now I’m updating this time log and posting it in a blog.

8:30pm – about to curl up on the couch with a book and some water. I’ll probably read til 10:30 or 11, then go to bed. But if not, I’ll come back and tell the truth tomorrow. :-)

11pm update - stopped reading at 10:30, and I just took some time to make a to do list for tomorrow, realizing my vacation is sneaking up on me, and I need to get on the ball. Night night.

Somewhat productive day with lots of time wasted, and not necessarily in the name of rest and relaxation. Will be interesting to see how the rest of the week pans out.