Week of Feb 16, 2015: Aiming for stamina + scheduling
S. J. Kelley > Writing and Publishing > On Writing Words (OWW!) > Week of Feb 16, 2015: Aiming for stamina + scheduling
sjkelley
February 23, 2015
On Writing Words (OWW!)
Time Management
| Week of |
Days I wrote |
Words written |
Time used |
WPH |
| Feb 16, 2015 |
3 |
3514 |
9:22 |
375 |
Best week yet in terms of numbers, but still not where I want to be. I’ve been taking Tuesdays and Thursdays off to write and teach (I don’t really get “weekends” with two young kids, I just do the mommy job really). Yet despite having all the day available I seem to only log 3.5 to 4 hours of writing. I have to increase my stamina to be more productive on those days, which should really be my powerhouse days. I’d also love to write every day.
I took some time to come up with yet another schedule to try to fit in my day job, part-time job, and writing, and of course family and exercise (although I have yet to get to that last one; I hope I don’t die young). They say regular sleep is more important than the number of hours, but my normal cycle is to stay up until crazy-o’clock (as in 2am when I have to get up at 6:30am) and then go to bed early the next few nights to catch up. The potential new schedule looked more reasonable because it had a solid 8:15 of sleep each night, but I don’t know how realistic it is. I think I’d do better with longer chunks of time less often, but if Tuesday and Thursday are any indication, maybe not.
I also got thrown a curve ball this week. My son’s therapist is moving on to a higher level position so we have to find someone else within two weeks, which will be challenging if not impossible. Taxes are due and I have a very sizeable bill. And I’ve run out of lectures for my course and have to make more. Fun times.
I got most of the taxes squared away this weekend (earned myself a guilt trip from the kiddos who must think, “don’t disturb mommy, she’s working” is the natural state of things). I thought I’d just do a course prep marathon in the week coming up and take care of that and a bunch of other domestic stuff (hire a therapist for my son, get my eyes checked and new lenses, order a car seat replacement buckle, refute parking tickets, pay life insurance… the List of Boring goes on). At some point I have to replace my 10-year-old hot water boiler before it explodes, but knowing how life is it will probably get ignored until it explodes and we have even bigger problems.
I’m thinking I should just give into my natural patterns and schedule marathon sessions. Stay up until 2am on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, and take a nap in the middle of the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays (plus in bed early Saturday and Sunday). Hmmm. Gonna go work that out and see how it shapes up. =) Maybe at some point I’ll figure out how to get more hours into the day.
