Almost exactly a year ago, on September 30, 2020, Amanda and i decided we needed a plan. Having spent the majority of the year to that point in quarantine, we were turning into the couch and getting nothing accomplished with our lives. So, we created a daily schedule, to help with productivity. It covered every day of the week and included blocks of time for exercise, meals, housework, and even rest time, with allotted spaces for watching movies and playing games. Most importantly, though, it gave me time to sit down and work on my projects, uninterrupted. Finding project time has been the hardest. There's always something distracting me or keeping me away or Amanda keeps thinking of things she thinks i should be doing.
We failed immediately. As i recall we didn't stick to the schedule for even one single solitary fucking day.
I think we did manage to start getting some things accomplished, though, and i started to work more, so there was that. But lately, i've been feeling trapped in that same rut again, particularly with the projects. I've ended up with a few pretty big gaps in employment again recently and the time has just disappeared on me. This year i've had four-week spans that i haven't been able to account for.
So, a few days ago, i trotted the idea back out in front of Amanda. She readily agreed to it. We went back through the old schedule and made some significant changes, both to accommodate the things that have changed in our lives in the last year, and to add a better sense of realism to it. In bed at midnight and up for a run at 5am? I have had spurts of that kind of ambition many times in the last few years, but (a) it's never sustainable and (b) Amanda absolutely will not.
And now here we are, with an updated version of a daily schedule for ourselves to try and adhere to.
We started yesterday and it went pretty well! The schedule for Wednesday has me getting up at 6 for a short solo run. Meanwhile, i make sure Amanda's out of the bed before i go so she can take care of the dogs and prepare herself for our strength workout, which we do together starting at 7. The problem here is that our strength workouts lately have been taking 2+ hours, and we don't even know why. It's 25 minutes of actual workout with a 10 minute burnout at the end. Warmup and stretching shouldn't be taking us more than another 25 minutes over that. Yesterday we did better, but i think it was still an hour and a half. Fortunately, the next scheduled item is an hour for breakfast, which does not require that much time. It's good to have padding.
After breakfast, we spent two hours cleaning the house, and honestly made more of a mess. But an organized mess! Lunch is supposed to begin after that at 11 (i like an early lunch), but i carried on with the item i was working on until almost 11:30 before i broke to fix food. I still managed to be ready for Trevor projects by noon though.
After this, i have a wonderful 6.5 hour stretch of uninterrupted productivity. I chose to use my first project block to wrangle up a list of all the projects i currently have in the hopper. Amanda continued cleaning for a bit and then went to play Diablo online with Drew. In their conversation, Drew asked how i was doing, and i popped over to explain the schedule and the list i was making, and that i had so far identified 68 projects, which meant i need one more. Amanda and Deanna laughed when i said that but Drew panicked, like he couldn't believe i was in the middle of 68 projects. So that conversation became Drew's lovely wife Deanna and i explaining to him how the minds of creative people work, and the constant state of furious innovation and exhaustion that we exist in.
I did end up identifying two more projects, and completing one yesterday, which leaves me at the desired number.
After dinner we watched The Shining and did the dishes before heading to bed. There were still a few rough edges on the routine, but i think we did pretty well. Especially for us.
Today's already gotten a little jankier. First of all, my dentist appointment for next week got moved up to today, at 9:30 am, which would have eaten straight into housecleaning time. The workout this morning was supposed to be a medium run (6 miles for me, 4 for them), which Alyssa joins us for, starting at 7. Alyssa called around 6 and bailed on us, asking to shift the run to tonight. Amanda agreed, and i informed her i was still going to run in the morning. I'd already calculated that if i started the run at 7, i should be back by 8:15ish and able to stretch & shower with plenty of time to leave the house by 9 for my appointment. However, instead of getting up at 6 like i'm supposed to, i used Alyssa's bailout as an excuse to snooze my alarm until 6:30. I got out of bed five or so minutes after that and started prepping for the run, but as soon as i was in motion, my guts had something to add to the conversation.
Guess what i didn't do yesterday, because it wasn't on the schedule?
I thought i'd push it off to after the run, before the shower, since i'd be in the bathroom anyway. But i was becoming increasingly unsure if that was possible, and i ultimately reasoned that there was no need to make myself miserable during the workout when it would end up as the same amount of time taken either way.
I didn't get back from the bathroom until 7:15. I was still theoretically in a good spot for getting my run done and hygiene completed in time to make my appointment, but the margin for error was shrinking rapidly. Amanda was awake by this time. I let her talk me into shifting my run to tonight also, and instead using my pre-dentist time to work on housecleaning projects. The run will have to slot in to 7pm, pushing dinner later, and losing our movie time tonight.
I deemed this acceptable.
Had a terrible time at the dentist, and still got back with a half an hour to work on a home improvement project before lunch.
So i'm in projects time now. Amanda's project for today is working on her Monster Of The Week campaign, since we've got a game scheduled for tomorrow. So far i've written this blog, which i can definitely justify as one of my projects, but after this i think i'm gonna work on either editing the Grand Canyon footage (which was one of the projects i started yesterday), or work on the Poor-Ass Christmas.
I hope we stick with this. I think we'll be happier people. I've had a good day and a half so far.
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