Woulda, coulda, shoulda, where does the time go?

Woulda, coulda, shoulda, where does the time go?
                        

There are some things I still miss about work after I retired last year. The people, of course, but also the in-service days. Those were days where we listened to speakers and, hopefully, learned a few new tricks on how to become better people at work.

At least that is how it was supposed to work. Some days the topics were interesting, and other days, well, we all tried hard not to nap on the job. I developed a few tricks over the years; I used to take a container of hulled sunflower seeds and eat them one by one to have something to do to stay awake.

I also may have looked ambitious with my paper and pen, but it was good to have something to doodle on if the need arose. I could take notes if the speaker was good or just write my real thoughts like, “This is so boring,” or make a list of what would I rather be doing — like dodging traffic on the interstate or having dental work.

To fill this in-service void, I’ve discovered free online webinars. There are a lot of very interesting topics you can learn about without leaving your house. I took several webinars on writing, and the latest one I took was on time-management because the big, disappointing secret about retirement is you just don’t have as much time as you thought you would.

This webinar focused on how to find the time you need to do the things that are important to you, specifically writing a book. I was happy to see several other participants in the webinar were retired and were commenting in the chat area that they didn’t have as much time as they thought they would.

“I just drift through my days,” one wrote, and another retired person agreed. It sounded familiar. There have been a lot of days I just drifted through without any real plan — although I consider that a perk of retirement.

This wasn’t getting me any closer to the writing goal I’ve had since fifth grade, though. I listened intently to the time-management webinar, took a few notes and decided to track my time as suggested. At one time we were time tracking at work, so this was something I already knew how to do. I seemed to be spending a lot of time on writing, but was I really?

I drifted through the rest of the day, and the first thing the next morning, I spent some time designing my own time-tracking sheet. My goal was to look for ways to improve my time-management around the house, not just writing. This should be interesting.

Day 1

Cat care, in the form of wet cat food served for breakfast, is the first order of business every day at this house, and if you don’t comply, you’ll be sorry. You will get nonstop pitiful meows in your face until cat care is complete. Afterward, I put away the dishes, read and replied to emails, and cooked and ate breakfast, all by 9 a.m. My sister arrived, and we went for a half-hour walk. Then it was back to research, writing questions for story interviews and more email. I was on a roll. I will be able to get more done, and this will be great.

Joe had slept in, but he is now up for the day. I’m not going to let him affect my ambitious time-tracking plan, though. I’m going to power through and see how much I can get done.

Screech! Joe is settling in on the couch, and he is going to watch one of our all-time favorite movies, “The Long, Long Trailer,” starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Oh no! This is a dilemma.

For those of you who haven’t seen this movie, the stars play newlyweds who buy a travel trailer to live and travel in. Of course, with Lucille Ball involved, all kinds of hilarious situations ensue. I really wanted to watch the movie, but I didn’t want to log two hours of doing nothing so early in the day.

But remember, you always have options. I take a lot of photos. I’ll take at least 10 shots of everything, and they just clog up my computer. So if I decided to go through some of my photo files and delete the extra photos while I watched the movie, then I wouldn’t look like a dream-killing slacker — on paper anyway.

I only got to lunch when I discovered one of the biggest time killers: cooking, eating and cleaning up the kitchen. This totaled an hour and 15 minutes just for sandwiches.

Later, more fun TV shows came on, like “Perry Mason” and “Tanked,” the show where they build giant, artistic fish tanks for famous people and talk about colorful fish. I discovered I can research and watch TV at the same time. Don’t stop me. I’m multi-tasking.

Then it was 3:30 and time to fold and put away laundry. I didn’t think I had that much laundry, but it took a whole hour.

Preliminary scientific conclusion: Everything you are doing takes longer than you think it should.

Of course, if Joe needs assistance doing some maintenance around the house or yard, there goes my schedule — to the tune of two hours on Day 3.

Some of my other interesting time-tracking logs included too tired to do anything but watch TV on Day 3, pick up around 2,000 sticks in the yard and read a book until I fell asleep on Day 5.

Other things were harder to track, like when my phone rang and sounded the arrival of text messages nonstop on Day 4.

So now I think my next step is to fill in what I want to do ahead of time on my time-tracking sheet and actually follow the schedule to get more done, but it wouldn’t hurt to see what’s on TV first.


Loading next article...

End of content

No more pages to load