Thursday, October 18, 2018

A Realization about My Current Time Use

I took the kids to get their flu shots today (and also got mine). Pumpkin didn't faint this year, and Petunia only freaked out a little bit... so it was a good year, I guess.

While we waited to make sure Pumpkin wouldn't pass out, Pumpkin read, Petunia watched a show I'd downloaded onto my tablet, and I thought about all the things I need/want to do.

I was feeling a little bit down about how slow I'm going with Adjusted Latitudes, and also wondering if I could say yes to a really interesting book project an author just pitched to me, but that I'm not sure I have the bandwidth to do.

I was thinking that maybe I can't keep the side projects going at the level I thought I could, despite what my time-tracking data had told me when I was deciding whether or not to go back to a "regular job."

And then I realized that I have a new "hobby" that I'm sinking a lot of time into: writing postcards and researching races to donate money to.

I don't plan to stop writing postcards after the midterms, but I do plan to scale back a bit. I had been aiming for at least 10 postcards per week (sometimes I'd do 15 or 20 if I had the time). In September, I bumped that up a notch, and I'm currently writing 5 postcards every day. That's not a huge time sink... but I think it explains why I don't feel like I have as much time to write travel posts or promote books, particularly when I add in the time I've been spending figuring out where I should send money to help in this campaign season.

So I don't feel so bad now about the glacial pace on getting Adjusted Latitudes going, and I think I'll reserve judgement about that book project until after the midterms.

Maybe some other night I'll write about my mixed feelings about the level of political involvement I feel I need to have right now. On one hand, I have realized I was too complacent about the problems in this country and I don't want to go back to that. On the other hand, think of all the other things we could all be doing with our time right now instead of fighting so hard for these midterms.

5 comments:

  1. Occasionally I wonder how much more productive the US would be if Clinton had won. But then I remember that the productivity loss is second order compared to the lives that wouldn't have been lost and children who wouldn't have been traumatized.

    Thank you for all that you do. You are a huge inspiration.

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    1. It makes me happy that I've recruited a few other people in real life and on here to write postcards!

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    2. DH's gaming group decided to help me get through my pile this afternoon. It's a bit weird having 2 STEM Phds, a psychiatrist, and a surgeon writing post-cards, but... I'm not really sure there's a better use of our time on a lazy Saturday.

      The surgeon's, of course, are beautiful. (She does everything beautifully: https://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/ponderings-on-perfection/ )

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  2. Socal dendrite10:23 AM

    Fwiw, I think Adjusted Latitudes is beautiful, and I'm happy to read new content just as and when it appears. It has made me a bit wistful for my pre-family travel days though. (Yes, we can travel with the kids - and we are starting to do more - but things are complicated because my husband has a chronic health condition that limits us. Plus a lot of travel money/time gets used up on trips back to see family in the UK, which of course I enjoy, but I miss going to new places :-/)

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    1. We have a similar "all international travel is to New Zealand" situation. I've made peace with that by making sure we're exploring at least one new place in New Zealand each trip, whether that's a new city/town or just a new museum or other attraction in Wellington or Auckland (we go to those two cities every trip). We need to get better about doing something similar with our frequent trips to Arizona, but those tend to be shorter so it is harder to fit in time to explore.

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