Time

[Chicken lady]

I am in a “time in a bottle” phase right now. The line “there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them” keeps playing in the back of my head.

i am trying to look at my days in terms of getting the big rocks in first.

i am struggling with urgent vs. important.

today -
teaching will take most of my “big rock” spaces.
Disbudding the little girl goat is both urgent and important.
i am out of chicken feed. And gasoline.
the 4h boy is coming this evening. (Probably)

i got 6 hours of interrupted sleep last night, so I have been moving slowly - coffee, clothes, reading, but I need to accelerate now.

[flowerseverywhere]

We can’t invent more time, but between work and your property, house and animals it is indeed a juggling act.

I have no no hints on how to juggle it all, but just want to encourage you to stop and “smell the roses” along the way. At the end of the day the sun will set, and rise the next day so just do your best and know in a few days the weekend will be here.

[catherine]

I've started using a bullet journal, and of all the many time management systems I've tried--both paper and online--this is working the best for me.

I can time-block any way that suits me. So, I typically create my daily page first thing in the morning. I'm not constrained by a pre-printed format. So after I write the hours of the day down the left side of the page, I draw blocks of time and assign them their "task"--I liken it to packing a suitcase. These time blocks can be intense/work-related, errands that need to be run, or they can be "go for a walk" or "read outside on the lounge chair". Actually writing it down gives me focus, otherwise, I'm prone to just spinning wheels doing exactly what I'm doing now--spending too much time on the internet.

On the page I capture other things: what I spend money on (I do have an on-line tracker for that, but I like to scribble it down so I don't forget to input it). I also put notes of what I did and how it made me feel "Went to GS birthday party :)".

It's worked really well for me. I use the kind of notebook with the little dots rather than lined or blank pages. Again, it's a "soft guide."

CL, I ditto what flowerseverywhere said: You seem to be the type of person who feels guilty having the second cup of coffee because of your long to-do list. But don't! Things get done, one thing at a time. There's no other way.

Here's an article I bookmarked YEARS ago (can't believe I was able to find it) because I like the author's approach to being busy.

http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/buddhism/2001/01/being-busy.aspx

[razz]

Is time your master or servant is what I ask myself, and often. I adjust my schedule accordingly and my commitments. Is this easy to do, no, but I am in charge and accept that responsibility. Don't know if that thought helps or is just irritating. ;)

[iris lilies]

Today I am preparing iris stalks for a show. Show time is always frenzied because I have to cram a lot of preparation into a couple of hours.

I used to take 20-25 stems to a show. Many of them were not blue ribbon quality but they were so damned pretty! I wanted to show them off! This took so much time to prepare!

But now that Iam more experienced, I have a general idea of how many stalks I want to take. Today, I wish to take 12 good tall bearded iris and then whatever good quality entries I have in other classes. I learned to let go of the regret that I had when i couldnt take so many cultivars to the show. It just doesnt matter! I am at the show to support the iris society, participate in a good competition, and show good iris to their best advantage. It is about quality, not quantity.

[Teacher Terry]

When I was raising my kids I was super busy but luckily I was also young.Now my life is super chill. I often decide once I get up what I am doing that day. Of course if I am meeting someone then I need to plan. Monday a good friend of mine called and he asked did I want to walk our dogs together and then sit outside and talk. I was grading but said yes as I can always do it later. So I would just juggle the best you can and realize things will always be undone. Once you retire you will have all the time in the world for your hobbies and little farm.

[Chicken lady]

My job is one of my hobbies. The roses are some of the things I work to fit in (I don’t feel guilty about the second cup of coffee, but I get angry about the stuff I don’t see value in.)

i started the bullet journal thing, and I liked it, but I ended up doing a lot of writing in it and then I don’t have tim3 to write in it.... I keep my “to do” list in notes. I have a “note” for each day and I delete stuff and then cut and paste whatever is left onto the next day.

i liked the article very much. I honestly have a similar approach in practice, I just get annoyed that I can’t do all the things. Is it acceptance if you realize it is what it is and you can’t change it, but you still don’t like it? I would say time is my servant but I would prefer a slave.

today I was collateral damage at work. It was exhausting. And stressful. I went to my boss and had her help me so I could handle the essentials, and she did. But I asked only for the minimum help I needed. I’m not sure what is going to happen with the person who threw me under the bus. I don’t think she meant to (hence the “collateral”)

the 4h kid was an hour and a half late, so I “ignored” him. He managed ok without me, so I will ignore him from now on unless it is convenient not to. As in, I am not going to worry about being home when he comes tomorrow.

off to do more things. ;)

[Zoe Girl]

I am not sure how I ever did it when my kids were younger, I think my job has grown exponentially over the last 2 years for one thing. But still, wow it was a lot!

Now I get torn between my hobby/business of crochet and the rest of life. I am also moving and that is a big project, like super big! At work I am working on being more humble about things and accepting help. I have no idea what most help looks like, and there are times when I really honestly ask and the answer is no. So that is a challenge.

I don't have any advice, except to recognize life is a lot messier than we want and it is the nature of life to be messy. We can put in systems and accountability and a lot of things, and life is going to be messy.

[Chicken lady]

The thing about my todo list is that it has been largely purged of “shoulds” but is still over full of “musts” and “want tos” (“must” get gas on the way to work, “ want to” finish 13 plates for saturday’s sale...)

[Chicken lady]

Sorry for the many choppy posts. I am popping in between other activities.

tomorrow’s big things are:
work - unload kiln, reload kiln, fire kiln, sub for two morning classes, fundraiser at lunch time, break, teach one afternoon class
pottery- possibly go down to studio to glaze, definitely prep for saturday’s sale.

morning will have chores, making breakfast, packing lunch, and many small tasks to make the rest of the day go well. I get to skip dinner tomorrow.

[SteveinMN]

The thing about my todo list is that it has been largely purged of “shoulds” but is still over full of “musts” and “want tos” (“must” get gas on the way to work, “ want to” finish 13 plates for saturday’s sale...)
Your "want tos" are just "shoulds" with a slightly-more-permissive name. You may "want to" finish 13 plates but is there a minimum number of plates you "must" finish? If there is, then that number of plates are a "big rock" and they need time allocated in your schedule. Otherwise plates (some or all of them) wait until the need for them increases or they float toward the bottom of the list as a "want to".

[Chicken lady]

No, “should” is a thing that carries a perceived consequence imposes by external judgement: “I should wash the dishes.” (Why? Because it is socially unacceptable to have a sink full of dirty dishes)
“need” (must) carries a natural consequence “I need to wash some dishes” (why? Because I am thirsty and have nothing clean to drink from. because the dishes have become an environmental hazard.)
“want” is totally internally driven and generally carries a reward or sense of satisfaction rather than a consequence or judgement “I want to wash the dishes” (why? Because I enjoy having clean dishes and an empty sink? Possibly because I enjoy the act of washing dishes? Usually because I don’t want it to become a need at a bad time, which is more of a need thing really.)


I like making the plates. I like selling the plates. Nobody cares but me.

[SteveinMN]

The way you described making plates, CL, did not differentiate between the interest in making a number of them because it was a need, a joy, or an external expectation. But that's semantics. Gotta get to the needs first, even if those needs are not always internally imposed.

[Chicken lady]

It was just meant to be an example of a want, not the semantic deconstruction I followed up with.

and yes, needs first, wants second, and learning to let people own their own shoulds - not my problem. I have enough trouble differentiating needs and wants (can one argue that getting some of one’s wants is a need?) mostly I start with “will anyone/anything die if I do/do not do this?”

[Zoe Girl]

This made me think about a conversation recently when I was talking about something exciting to me like Maker Faire, The person I was talking to got excited with me. I asked if she had heard of it or if she was a maker. She said no but my energy was enough to get her excited.

So when we have a little bit of that time and energy it can really affect ourselves and others positively.

[Chicken lady]

So, that started out well enough, then dh took me out to dinne4 and I haven’t even thought about the sale.

i’m not Ready for my classes tomorrow, and i’m Tired.

My ”big rocks” btw refer more to things that take a big chunk of time, rather than things that are top priority. I know that is different from the big rocks in the well known speech.

[Chicken lady]

So classes actually went off well today.

i am currently “tutoring”, but tutoree needed a bathroom break.

i want very badly to set up for my show tonight, but I need to take the ducks home. I will clean out the car, price and pack, and have everything loaded so I can leave early tomorrow and hopefully do a quick set up. I am not putting up a backdrop this time. It looks much nicer, but it takes a significant amount of time and an extra trip to the car. I have a good location, and that will need to be enough.

i just got handed a new large project at work.

[Chicken lady]

So, as posted in another thread, I made it through the show. And dinner and a concert after with dh without even falling asleep. But I got home and did chores at midnight. And this morning i slept until 9. I wanted to spend mother’s day (when I get to do whatever I want and everybody has to go along/leave me alone - family tradition) planting things. But by the time I got up, it was already hot - we went straight from winter to summer! And I was still dragging and tired. So I decided to listen to my body and spend the day relaxing. I unpacked from the sale, did my chores, ran a load of laundry and a load of dishes, read, and watched some videos.

tomorrow - big rock: food bank.
more laundry, more dishes, maybe planting, maybe work in my home pottery studio, some planning for the next two weeks (school is done in 13 days and I leave to visit my son!)

[Chicken lady]

I have been contemplating a “rating system” for my time rocks.
i - important (to me or to someone who is important to me)
u - urgent (must be done right away or there will be a consequence i find unacceptable ie. get gas when down to my last gallon)
m- mandatory (I am required to do this ie. make car payment, write class evaluations)
t - time sensitive (the opportunity to do this will pass ie. Pottery sale)
r - routine (things I do that are not intrinsically very important but that avoid creating urgency ie. Wash clothes or dishes)

so far today I have covered:
make breakfast, pack lunch (it)
chores (tr) and start laundry (r)
work at food bank (it)

i have no u or m items today, so my goal is to not fill my time with rs instead of is.

[Teacher Terry]

I get that your job is your hobby because teaching my one class is mine. I laughed when I saw your rating system which takes time to document:))

[Chicken lady]

Well, I don’t intend to record all of it! Just sharing my thought process for conversational purposes.

[Teacher Terry]

I was being silly:~)

[Chicken lady]

Ok, today’s plan (the ***** indicate current location):
Make breakfast
pack lunch
make rice pudding
unload dishwasher
*****eat
chores
load and start dishwasher
start load of laundry
mail check
work outside (on ?)
pick cherries
evaluations
more laundry/dishes
work in studio

dh will not be home for dinner tonight. :)

[Teacher Terry]

Maybe a few nights a week buy prepared food at the deli/grocery store so all you have to do is heat it up for him.

[Chicken lady]

Why? He can buy his own prepared food on the way home - already hot - and get exactly what he wants with no time and energy on my part and less net driving.

[Chicken lady]

From that list, “work outside” and “studio” were very brief. I ended up picking rhubarb as well as cherries and chopping it up. It took a while. I froze three pies worth.

evaluations have been wearing me down, but I am down to six and plan to finish them today.

There was an article in the New York Times about quitting. It included the line : “It’s better to just start the things that you know you have the resources to finish”

lately i I have been feeling like I have very few resources. I have been trying to focus on “the things that are already here.” For example, my garden got completely out of control. I have a poison ivy problem. Rather than trying to carve the space back and plant spring seeds, I have begun tethering goats to the fence to eat the weeds and poison ivy and building a deep manure mulch on top of cardboard - I have a pottery studio full of cardboard and a barn that needs to be cleaned out - in the hope that next year this will be less of a challenge. Perhaps I will even plant something in the fall.

i currently have cherries and rhubarb. So I am making a point to pick them and use them. There is no point to planting more food if I am not using the food I already have.

i have a bunch of physiological symptoms going on that I was pretty sure were manifestations of my old friend depression, but had started to think might be primarily physical. Some of them went away when I went to Wisconsin. Then they came back. So, I need to focus on the physical causes of the ones that didn’t change, and I need to figure out what I need to change about my life. Moving in with my son is not an option, so I need a different environmental approach to the depressive symptoms.

i’m pretty sure that walking 5 miles, a lot of it outside in the sun, the first day we were there helped a lot.

today, I am going to make pie. And dinner (but it will be pasta)
finish my evaluations
run the dishwasher once
and work outside

i remember how good I felt when I weeded ds’s flowerbed in 20 minutes (it helps that he has soil and not clay and you can pull the weeds and the roots just come out!) I am going to try to spend 20 minutes on my flowerbed. It won’t look like his, but whatever part I finish will be close enough.

[nswef]

CL, Close enough is a good thing. Your idea for the lost garden is inspired! cardboard used up, manure used up, new space for planting next year is a win all around!!! Once you finish the evaluations you will feel accomplished as well. Sometimes it helps to have blinders on in the yard and just fix the area you can fix. You WILL figure it out.

[Teacher Terry]

I would focus on enjoying your farm and time off this summer and accomplish what you can without pressuring yourself.

[Tybee]

yes, enjoy your time off! That is part of Time and time management as well.

[Chicken lady]

So it has been a week, and here is a bit of an update.
i got the evaluations done.
the cherries are over. I have enough for a pie frozen.
the rhubarb is still going and I have one pie in the fridge and enough for 4 frozen.
yesterday I made ice cream (milk and eggs)
i also baked bread. Because I like homemade bread.

my heartdaughter came to visit and brought me a bag of books on loan. I am trying not to spend too much time reading them. I am thinking about setting aside time in the afternoons to read them on the exercise bike.
i have been spending time in the mornings reading and journaling.

the goats are making progress on the weeds.
i ordered a whetstone for my scythe.
i learned how to drive the lawn tractor (don’t laugh, It only took my five minutes, but I needed instruction, it was not intuitive and the gas guage is broken.)

everything takes longer than than I think it should, but last night we had homemade bread and soup for dinner and the kitchen isn’t very messy.

i’m going To start with barn and garden this morning, move into the studio when it gets hot, and quit in time to maybe ride the bike, definitely take a shower, and go to the post office and farmer’s market before helping at the food bank. I’m making pasta salad early and leaving it in the fridge for dinner.

[iris lilies]

I, too started to learn to drive the riding mower last week. I needed a lesson.After the lesson I decided I wont be driving the riding mower, I hate it. Our property is on a big hill and I just do not feel,confident driving that thing. It feels like I will fall over.

This has some unpleasant consequences since it means I will rely sometimes on DH to drive buckets of mulch down the hill, and that means we have to work together and coordinate our time. That will not go well!

[Chicken lady]

So, I realized that one of the reasons I keep losing garden areas is because I rely on dh to mow. He mows what he thinks is important. Aside from a small strip of “lawn” around the house, most of what he mows is area I would brush hog once a year. He does not mow paths to vegetable/fruit gardening areas, the greenhouse, or around the garden fence. When I mulch beds, rather than driving on the wide strip of mulch around the plants and thereby cutting all grass and weeds beyond the edge of the mulch, he keeps space between the bed and mower. So I gave a 8-10” strip of talk grass and weeds along every bed. No matter how many times I explain the procedure I would prefer, he says “i’m afraid you’re going to be mad at me if I mow your plants” and continues to do it his way. He also stays back from the edge of the woods - allowing a band of grass, weeds, and poison ivy to establish itself.

he also waits too long to start mowing in the spring because the grass grows more slowly that the weeds I want to mow to control.

i have been trying to maintain paths and edges with my scythe, but it is too much for me by mid-summer. So now, I am going to cut my paths with my scythe and maintain them with the mower.

[Float On]

I, too started to learn to drive the riding mower last week. I needed a lesson.After the lesson I decided I wont be driving the riding mower, I hate it. Our property is on a big hill and I just do not feel,confident driving that thing. It feels like I will fall over.

This has some unpleasant consequences since it means I will rely sometimes on DH to drive buckets of mulch down the hill, and that means we have to work together and coordinate our time. That will not go well!


This reminded me of a few years ago I was at home visiting my parents on the farm and offered to help dad mow. It's also a big hill. I took one of the riding mowers (he has 4) and started on the front which is a big hill. I quickly learned that the mower I took had no breaks!!! One of the wildest rides of my life (I've had several) on the farm.

[lmerullo]

Riding mowers and I dont get along. Last year I "mowed" about a half acre before dh pointed out the blade was not engaged. Later that same season, I mowed over a heavy extension cord - which resulted in a breaker blowing, huge arcs first, and a big whip mark on my leg where the jerked free cord hit me. Dh thought I electrocuted myself the way I jumped off!

[Teacher Terry]

CL, you are making great progress. FO, that sounds scary. I love our Astro-turf no mowing needed. However, I love real grass more so if I lived where it rained we would definitely have it.

[Chicken lady]

So, I think I may have pendulumed a little too far toward manic this morning.
i did my chores.
i did a load of laundry and a load of dishes
i made an appointment to meet with a shop owner on Wednesday about selling pottery.
i cut up the ingredients for dinner
i invited a friend over for next Monday
i drove to a nearby town and replenished my veterinary supplies
while I was there I went to the thrift store and got 5 pairs of jeans (needed new jeans for fall) and 3 games for my classroom - total $23
I also got groceries.
i put away the groceries but not the cooler, jeans (need washed) or games

and I accepted the unpaid role of recycling assistance program coordinator at work on the condition that I could have an after school club (I get paid like it’s a class, the kids pay to participate, a “club” is just unevaluated and wider in age range) focused on resource use and conservation. The administration countered with two clubs (g1-6 and g7-12) on two different days, and I accepted and have to turn in discriptions for their announcement on Wednesday.

i am exhausted. I still have to cook the dinner and do evening chores. And probably shower.