The Big Rocks, Part III

I think I'm really going to get to the point this time. I have a good feeling about it.

Part of Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project is/was keeping a resolutions chart. Like Ben Franklin and his  famous resolutions, she makes a list of resolutions, and scores herself on them daily. She explains pretty succinctly at that link why they work so well for her. I read the Happiness Project over New Year's weekend, and, though I think a Resolutions Chart would probably be useful to me, I did not make one.  I've never believed in New Year's resolutions, particularly, because I have always felt that I tried my best to do what I thought I should be doing all year round (not that I succeeded, but that I was trying) so there was no reason to make New Year's resolutions that, like diets, seem to be made to be broken.

So I continued my policy of not making resolutions, but I was obviously very inspired by what I read in her book (she appears in probably 1/3 of my posts, and a lot of what I write about has resulted from trying her suggestions), and I did jot down a list of things I thought of while reading that I thought would make me happier in the new year. It said:

• plenty project
• * time--slow down
• create at will
• be open to earning $$
• find people to play music with
• call friends; spend time with local friends; look for opportunities to create a network
• call not email
• reframe

In one of my first posts, I talked about reframing so that I would feel good about the few important things I had gotten done in a morning rather than focusing on the things I wasn't getting done. So this is where I am about to tie in the big rocks, but I have to stop for now. I'll try again later.

The big rocks, Part I

I keep starting posts but not having time to finish them. My goal is to write a little on the blog every day, even if it doesn't result in something actually being posted every day. I'll just keep plugging away and hopefully more things will get posted soon.

Years ago, back before we had kids or were even married, when my husband, Dr. J, and I lived in temperate Northern California, we thought we were busy. Once you have kids, you just shake your head and laugh because you thought you had no time before. Hahaha! Anyway, we both read a book by Stephen Covey et al. called First Things First. In it, Covey suggests identifying what is important in your life and identifying specific goals and activities related to these important things. The idea is that these important activities are often of a non-urgent nature, so they are always getting pushed aside by urgent-but-not-really-important things. For example, you would like to take your kid to the zoo, which is important because spending time with your kid is important to you, but since it's not urgent,* you keep putting it off so you can deal with other, non-important tasks that are urgent. You may even feel, as I would, that SOON, I will catch up on all these little tasks, and THEN I will have all the time in the world to spend some real quality time with my kid. Exercise could be another example. You feel it's important, but it CAN be put off for a day. But if you put it off for one day every day, it never happens.

The idea that you should identify what is important and do those things before all the little things on the list are done? That's golden. I have talked about that before on here and elsewhere, but not in a Covey way. 

So what you do instead, Mr. Covey says, is when you are scheduling your week, you put in these important-but-not-urgent activities into your schedule first, and then squeeze in the little things around them. Because once your schedule is full of little things, you can't fit in the big ones. His analogy is filling a jar with rocks and sand: if you put in the sand first, then the little rocks, the big ones don't fit, but if you put in the big rocks first, all the little stuff will fit in around them. Here's a YouTube video demonstrating this with actual rocks and sand. There are a million videos of it, but this one was short, if not very neatly done.

Gotta move on to another big rock. I'll continue this soon, I hope...

*unless you have this guilt-inducing song running through your head all the time, as I often do

Boule-y boule-y

Challenge Update: I took this picture the other day and now can't remember what I was going to say about it. But I am still baking bread! And tomorrow is the middle of the month! The Challenge is not as challenging as I was afraid it would be. It is just the right amount of challenge. The challenge really has been having a chance to blog about it or anything else. 

The computer is back with a new hard drive, but the challenge with that is that we upgraded the OS, and so it also has a new personality to go with its new brain, and so everything I try to do (merge mailing labels for a school mailing, sync the phone, etc.) takes about 50 times longer than I think it should. 

Seems like pictures on other people's blogs always look better than this one that I took with my phone. Oh, well. At least you can see that's it's bread. 

Why it's a crime to say there's Not Enough Time

I always feel like and say there's "not enough time," but, really that's a) crazy, when you think about the age of the universe; and b) wasteful, when you think about the relatively infinitesimal span of a human life, or even of human existence.

If there's not enough time in my lifetime or in a day for all the things I'm trying to get done and check off my to-do list so that I can finally enjoy myself, where does that leave me at the end? It leaves me filling my life with racing around, focusing on the little things, while putting off being happy.

Another small victory in my struggle with Time (and how I feel there's not enough of it) Part II

Right. It's been a few days since I started this story. Here is Part I of this post.

So that morning, Tuesday it was, I had a haircut. And as part of an effort to be able to go to a wedding  and look nice, I had the woman who cuts my hair give me part two of a tutorial on how to do an updo, using the curlers I got for Christmas, hairspray, mousse, and bobby pins, none of which I have used for at least 20 years, if ever. So it was good, and I felt like I was working toward a goal, plus, I had a nice conversation with my haircutter, who is very different from me in a lot of ways (e.g., I have never in my life used hot curlers before), but I've been seeing her every few months for 3 years or so, and I feel like we are pals.

Then I did something that I am very proud of. Since I was already out, I had a long list of errands I could run: things that have been on the list for weeks that I could finally cross off, but weren't exactly urgent. So instead of doing the easiest ones, or the most fun ones, I looked at my list and thought about how much time I really had for errands if I wanted to be able to do my exercises and laundry and blog post and not be late for preschool pickup. I also thought about which things would actually improve my quality of life for the rest of the day or week or have long-term benefits if done sooner rather than later. Picking up the photos I ordered would be fun and easy, but might take a while, and could be done just as easily next week, while looking for a piece of 2-inch webbing to do my physical therapy exercises correctly would mean that I was able to start doing my exercises that morning. Picking up the base for the birdfeeder would mean getting to watch the birds out the kitchen window, but a quick trip to the grocery store would mean we had some staples we were running out of as well as something for dinner.

So I made my choices, and took the time to call around (even though I hate calling around) to figure out where I might find 2-inch webbing, and finally decided that the fabric store next to the grocery store that was on the way home would be my best chance, with an outdoor store across the parking lot as backup. Well. I went to the fabric store, asked at the front where to find the webbing, marched the the fabric counter, and found someone else who was buying some of the exact thing I needed! I chatted with her (which I really enjoyed) and then bought what I needed. I even thought to look for a coupon on my phone, and found one for 50% off! Then I looked at some craft things that I like that were on sale, but decided not to buy any. Lately, the thrill I get from deciding not to buy things is even bigger than the thrill I get from returning things I don't really need. Then I made a lightning-fast trip to the grocery, and made it home in time to exercise and write the first half of this blog post.

I felt really good about all these things. In the past, I would have been overly optimistic about how long things would take, and I would have tried to do all my errands, starting with the fun and easy ones rather than the important ones, and wouldn't have called around before shopping for the webbing, and probably wouldn't have found it or had time to exercise or blog.

So. When I stopped to put something in my kids' room on my way up to exercise, I saw the big basket of laundry to be put away. Normally, my mind would have immediately raced to my giant To Do list, and I would have had the world-falling-in-on-my-head feeling.

But this time I skipped that. I immediately thought of all the really valuable things I'd gotten done this morning, and actually felt really excited about the fact that I'd connected with people, gotten food to feed my family, enabled myself to effectively do my PT exercises, and learned how to put my hair up for dressy occasions, not to mention that I had been honest with myself about which errands could be put off and how much time I had this morning for errands. It felt like a big victory.

Another small victory in my struggle with Time (and how I feel there's not enough of it) Part I

Today I had an appointment for a haircut. When I first realized yesterday that I did not have a morning free of commitments other than my usual list of things like cleaning up the kitchen, laundry, exercise, blogging, etc., my first thought was Geeeeeez. Another day when I am NOT going to be able to mop the floor.

Now, don't get the wrong idea here. I have mopped the floor of this house once since we moved in three and a half years ago (now, again, don't get another wrong idea; until recently, we paid someone to come do a minimal cleaning once a month, which kept everything from being disgusting, if not actually clean, most of the time). It's not like I'm addicted to mopping. But now that I have 3 hours "free*" "every**" weekday, I feel like there's no reason I shouldn't be mopping my own floor at least once a month.

So now I am out of time, and all I've done is set this story up, but haven't gotten to the point. I will make this Part I and hope that tomorrow I remember what it was I wanted to say.

*free, except for 45 minutes of exercise, the cleaning of the kitchen, laundry, urgent errands, newly-prioritized attempts to lift my spirits by talking to friends on the phone or seeing friends in person, volunteering at school, prepping dinner, and, until recently, trying to get ready for Christmas, etc.


**every, except for when someone's home sick, or I have physical therapy, or I'm sick, or I have some other doctor's appointment, etc.

Patience vs Time

Getting the kids up and dressed and ready for school today, I continued to try to remain positive. And gentle. And loving and appreciative of the fact that them. There was some deep breathing. There was some "taking a moment." But there was also some stopping and looking and listening. Stopping myself from constantly trying to nudge them toward our goal of leaving the house. Looking at their beautiful faces and listening to their creative language and the tone of their voices. Listening to what they wanted to tell me (Maury is from Africa and likes to eat Panamanian soup, which is African, since Panama is in Africa while I was helping them get dressed). Looking at what they wanted to show me (a snowplow plowing a driveway on the next street over while we were supposed to be eating breakfast.

Because paying attention to them, for my own sake, is a priority for me. But so is getting to school on time. And because I want them to feel to feel that their home is a safe and happy place. Because I want them to remember me as  to be present in the moment.

The other day I started reading World Enough & Time, On Creativity and Slowing Down by Christian McEwan. I stopped because I was reading a sample on my Kindle app, and I think I might like to have the brick and mortar book better. One big thing I got from the first chapter or two was that many people have had an experience that slowing down, even just consciously doing things more slowly, can make it seem like there is more time, even to the point of getting more things checked off the old To-Do list on a Saturday that on a Saturday spent rushing around. This seems difficult to believe, but as I am desperate to feel a roominess in time, I am trying to slow down. I have a lot more to say about this, but will hopefully do that another day.

For today, what I want to say is this: on a practical level, when dealing with my 3- and 5-year-old, on this particular Tuesday morning, not only did I enjoy the morning more than I would have with constant nudging and trying to shut them down any time they strayed from the goal, the boys seemed more willing to move forward and less likely to dig in their heels or tune me out. In sum: I felt that my acting as if there were plenty of time actually resulted in greater efficiency in getting up and out the door.

UPDATE 4 jan 2012 (the next day) lest you get the wrong impression of me:  Another thing that helped me have such a patient morning yesterday was the fact that I got up at my husband's regular time (5:50) as I usually do, and the kids didn't get up until after 7 (very rare) so I actually had time to get myself dressed, empty the dishwasher, get breakfast going, etc. That makes a HUGE difference,  rather than, say, top use this morning as an example, one kid getting up at 5:50 and fussing at me for an hour to "pick me up!!!" while I'm trying to get dressed, gather the laundry, etc. I also feel I should add that I had a nice, calm morning yesterday, but after picking up my 3-y-o at school and eating lunch with him, I completely hit a wall (partly because I am getting over the worlds most lingering cold and partly because I always get tired after lunch) and found myself being very short and impatient and not interested in appreciating anything other than laying down on the couch with my eyes closed.

It is almost 9 am

Got back from dropping the kids off at school and taking a short walk, and I looked at the clock, and thought, Geez, it's almost 9 am, and I haven't gotten anything done. Then I decided to reframe:


It's not even 9 am, and I helped the kids get up, get dressed, eat a healthy breakfast, brush teeth, wash faces, and get to school on time, all with a largely positive attitude, little nagging, etc. Then I took a short walk. In addition, I have remembered to slow down a number of times, and have not given in entirely to a feeling that I am being suffocated by all the stuff that needs I would like to get done. I would say that those are some REALLY IMPORTANT things that you have done already today.

I also realized that at the same time that I obsess about whether it's right to send the kids to preschool, shortening the time I spend with them each day, and am I being selfish, etc., etc., I have a number of habits that lead to my not actually enjoying the time I do spend with them, because either I'm trying to get something else done (make dinner), or I am trying to get them to do something (get ready for school).