28 Jul, 2009
Work, mornings, and a list of what we did yesterday
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Easy ways to make kids happy|Misc. life
I was talking to someone recently who asked me how I manage to work and have kids running around the house at the same time.
Summers were really challenging when the kids were small. I wasn’t able to accomplish much work during the day so I’d stay up until godknows o’clock just to get work done. The girls are older now and are MUCH better at taking care of themselves, which is great because I can no longer stay up until midnight cranking out an article or a website design. I decided it wasn’t fair to me as well as client … who was probably getting the not-so-creative results of a person who is only a shell of herself after 10:00 p.m.
Although I am fortunate to be able to get some work done during the day I decided to taken the additional step of getting up early to get additional writing work done.
I got the idea from a creative writer’s workshop I took at Algonquin awhile back. The author leading the workshop wrote several books by getting up two hours early every day to write. (And at the time he was a full-time working dad of a young family to boot!)
It sounds crazy, but it works. If nighttime isn’t good writing time, why not go to bed early and get up in the morning instead? It’s not like I’m doing much after 9:30 p.m. anyway.
There’ve been a couple mornings this past week which have worked out really well for me. Yesterday, not so much. I got up and realized we didn’t have milk so I felt obligated to go out (pjs under my clothes) and pick some up.
Impromptu milk pickups aside, overall I’ve actually been enjoying having a quiet house to myself while I write.
ETA: The idea of making priorities and managing time are two things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. If you were able to find two extra hours every day to do something you’re passionate about – what would you do? And could you find those two hours if you tried? i.e. by giving up TV, decreasing the amount you spend on the Internet or adjusting your bedtime?
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Just for fun I wanted to list all the things we did yesterday we:
- watched some cartoons
- biked to the library (it was closed due to a power outage)
- returned our books anyway
- biked home
- biked through puddles
- went to the bank to deposit allowances (It was so cute, and the girls feel very rich today)
- brought our pennies to the coin machine at the Superstore (it was closed)
- bought ingredients to make our own ice cream (we decided on “Creamsicle” flavour) and cheese buns for lunch
- painted our nails funky colours
- danced around in the rain (this was mostly the girls)
- ran through puddles
- fed the neighbor’s cat
- ate grape-flavoured popsicles
- played loud music while we tidied the house (we set a timer for 30 minutes to make it feel less like a chore)
- took pictures in the garden (mostly me)
- read
- thought about how we’re going to spend the rest of our summer
- collected moss for transplanting
- napped (just me – it’s the early rising thing!)
- made homemade mac & cheese for dinner, with carrots and broccoli on the side
- biked to another place to feed another cat. (We’re professional house sitters this week – although it’s mostly just Mark. We’re just the assistants!)
- read Harry Potter before bed (that would be Mark too.)
That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?
Now what should we do today?
