I have not entirely succeeded in my project of getting everything done for work so I can take next week off. But there is today and tomorrow.

Anyway, the good news is that the presents are wrapped. The children all wrapped (with some help) their sibling presents for each other (they will open these on the 23rd). We have matching family pajamas ready to go for the 24th. Children who are in the Christmas pageant have practiced their lines. Almost all the under-the-tree presents are wrapped, with only one present still outstanding, and the tracking information says it is in the USPS Philadelphia PA Network Distribution Center. So that’s a positive. I bought these cute little Christmas tree stocking holders for our mantle so we can actually hang stockings this year! My husband went to Wegmans last night and bought food for the extended family Christmas get-together.

It has been a very merry and full month. And there’s more stuff to come! But January will be slower. Life tends to come in waves. Though with five kids, there are always logistics and planning to be done (I started on the camp spreadsheet for summer…that is going to be a January project).

In other news: Please join me and Dorie Clark for a chat over at LinkedIn at noon, eastern, today! We’ll be talking Tranquility by Tuesday and time management in general. You can access the chat directly here (https://www.dorieclark.com/better)

Also, I’m hosting my annual time tracking challenge from January 9-15, 2023. If you’ve been looking for a good time to try tracking your time, this could be it. You can sign up here to get daily motivational emails.

And then, stay tuned for the first Tranquility by Tuesday Challenge! From January 20th to March 23rd we’ll be going through one of the nine TBT rules each week. I’ll have a sign-up for that coming in the new year.

Yesterday wasn’t snowy or all that cold. It did get dark early (of course) but now every day the light will last longer.

It was both a normal and abnormal day, as many seem to be right now. For some reason I kept thinking it was Wednesday. My 14-year-old often comes home on the bus on Wednesdays. He did yesterday (Tuesday) because all extracurriculars at his high school have been canceled for the week due to Covid issues (sigh). So I was just merrily working away after he came in, assuming that my 12-year-old had also gotten off the bus a little later (as he also would on a Wednesday). I didn’t hear him but he often disappears to go play on the downstairs gaming computer before I can intercept him and ask about such un-fun things as homework. I heard the elementary school aged kids come in.

Then, at 4:25, I got a text from the 12-year-old asking “Are you here?” Again, thinking it was Wednesday, I answered “yes” meaning yes, I was at home if he needed something. Then it suddenly dawned on me that no, it was Tuesday, and he’d stayed after school for an activity he always does on Tuesdays, and the kids have to be picked up by 4:30. My husband, nanny, and I divvy up driving, and this pick-up was on my list and…I had completely forgotten.

Fortunately, there’s an activity bus he was able to get on and it got him home by 4:40, which was exactly the time we likely would have gotten home if I had remembered to get him but…wow.

Anyway, he was fairly chill about the whole thing (my daughter’s reaction: “Can you please not forget about me too? Thanks.”). He accepted the explanation that I forgot about the pick-up, and not that I had forgotten about him. Indeed, I had spent some time that day purchasing Christmas presents for him at Target that he had specifically asked for, so there was solid evidence in that category.

That Target trip was epic but the shopping is officially done. I am done. I do not like spending money and while theoretically it is easier to do in situations where I am expected to spend money (present shopping) I still do not like it. Here’s hoping everyone likes what they got. And here’s hoping Santa brings good stuff too — I bought the dog a stocking yesterday, not because the dog cares, but because the consensus from people who answered my question on Instagram is that other household members would expect Santa to remember Max the poodle (even if Mom can’t remember to pick up all the kids…). So he now has a stocking with a paw print on it…

As I mentioned last week, I was having some real trouble figuring out what to buy the 12-year-old. I didn’t want to get him only video games.

I went to the “better” Target yesterday (slightly farther from the house, but more merchandise) thinking I would mostly round out what I’d gotten the 6-year-old. But, while there, I realized that the genius minds at toy and game and general consumer product companies don’t want to write off the 12-year-old boy market either. There were all kinds of options! I wound up getting a number of non-screen things I’m quite happy about and that I think he’ll love.

(Sorry for the vagueness for those looking for ideas…my kids sometimes read the blog!)

Anyway, it was a reminder to me of the trade-offs of in-person and online shopping. I love online shopping. That is how I will do most of my holiday purchasing. It is so efficient to choose presents while, say, nursing a toddler. Driving all the way to the not-closest Target took a fair amount of time. Even maneuvering the cart was kind of a challenge since little kid toys are often quite big (and big kid toys are small…go figure!) On the other hand, it feels harder, online, to discover things you didn’t know you were looking for. I think there is a similar trade off with reading news online vs. reading a “real” newspaper. I read the New York Times online and we get the Wall Street Journal delivered. I definitely read more random stuff in the WSJ. Then again, there are a great many days when I don’t read the WSJ because there was never a good time to sit down with the print newspaper. I almost always glance at the online headlines.

So it’s probably good to get a balance of both. But I will be trying not to go to physical stores on the Friday after Thanksgiving. That day always just seems crazy….

Photo: Many packages. Though I’m pretty sure this Amazon delivery is a pair of immediately-needed kid shoes, and not a Christmas present. 

One of my favorites? In “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” a later verse contains these two images: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away. They fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.”

(Note: Some modern hymnals change the “sons” language to “bears all our years away,” which I think gets at the point even better!)

The more I study time, the more apt I find these two comparisons to be. Time is like moving water. Moving water moves you along with it. It keeps moving no matter what you do. Because of that, it is easy to spend time mindlessly, focused only on the particular rock or eddy hurtling you around at the moment. It is hard to even fathom the water behind you, what is now water under the bridge as they say. This brings up the second image — of fleeting memories no longer quite in our grasps. I dreamed some interesting things last night. Those plots and intrigues are now nothing more than shadows. Same with a great many hours and days that are now in the past.

No one can stop time. No one can even slow it down. But being mindful of those hours as the ever-rolling stream moves along can change the experience of daily life. Documenting hours can also make memories more accessible. They are no longer quite so forgotten.

This brings me to the subject of tracking time. I first began suggesting people track their time when I was writing 168 Hours, my first time management book. I tried tracking my time as well. It was an eye-opening experience — partly because, before writing the book, I didn’t even know there were 168 hours in a week. Most people don’t. We live our lives in a repeating cycle of weeks, estimating proportions without even knowing the denominator. Seeing where those 168 hours went gave me a much more holistic perspective on my time. And while, yes, there were some cringe moments (we all waste time…a lot of time), I found the experience fairly comforting. In 168 hours I generally was making time for a great many things that were important to me. Knowing the size and shape of the canvas, I could experiment more, and make something even more satisfying.

I found time-tracking useful enough that I decided to start tracking my time continuously in April 2015. I’m still at it, now, in November 2021. Those 6.5 years were going to pass anyway, on that ever-rolling stream, but they are not quite as forgotten as my dreams anymore. I can look at a random Tuesday. I can look at the context. A few more specific memories can come to mind.

I don’t expect anyone else to track their time continuously for years (though if you want to, I promise it’s not much of a burden! Three minutes a day, more or less. Like brushing my teeth). But I do think anyone can benefit from tracking a week. You can download the spreadsheet I use (30 minute version), or use an app, or a notebook. Just write down what you’re doing, as often as you remember, in as much detail as you think will be helpful for you. As an example, I record some life-maintenance stuff (like showering/getting ready) but do not record every bathroom trip or snack. If I’m mostly supervising children, I’ll just write “kids, etc.” or something along those lines. There needs to be a balance between detail and feasibility. Being a little more vague has allowed me to keep going for years, which creates a more comprehensive picture of life than if I aimed for perfection…and stopped.

If you’re not in the habit, you’ll probably need to create reminders to check in. It’s pretty easy to remember a few hours during the day, so maybe set 4-5 alarms during a day to stop and record the previous few hours. If you keep going after a week you won’t need to do this, as it becomes a habit and you get better at recollection (I can now record 24 hours in pretty good detail if I want, but I still generally check in three times a day). Weekends tend to be harder than weekdays for new time trackers, but they are definitely worth tracking. This is real time that really happens and it is impossible to get an accurate sense of life without the weekend data too.

After a week, take some time to reflect on your log. If you’d like, you can add up the major categories. How much time did you spend sleeping? Working? In the car or in transit? With family? Doing housework or errands? Watching TV or other screen time? Hobbies? Exercise? Reading? Volunteering? I’d note that unless you’re really intent on creating pie charts, all these categories don’t have to be mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive. If you’re listening to audio books while exercising you can just pat yourself on the back and count these hours as both. If you’re into the pie charts, you’d need to create a category of multi-tasked exercise/reading.

The more important question is how you feel about your time. As you reflect on the week, what did you like? What is working in your life? Celebrate this! You can ask what you’d like to spend more time doing. And, of course, you can figure out what you’d like to spend less time doing as well — with the data in hand to make smart choices. In general, if you want to spend time better, you need to know where it is going now, which is exactly what time-tracking ensures.

Becoming more mindful of time makes time feel more rich and full. The years still roll on. They always do. But since life is lived in hours, being more aware of those hours allows us to be wiser stewards of whatever time we’ve been given. That might seem like a big ask for a spreadsheet, but I promise it is possible!

You can start tracking at any point, but if anyone is looking for a good option, I’ll be hosting my annual time-tracking challenge from January 10-16, 2022 (2023 update: I’ll be hosting my annual time-tracking challenge from January 9-15, 2023). I’ll post my time logs here and if you sign up, you can get daily motivational emails from me during that week. Something to mark on the calendar! It’s only a week and I promise it will be useful. So why not give it a whirl?

Photo: A metaphor for time…

Fortunately he did go down at 7:30 p.m. last night (if he was up again at 11 p.m….) which was good because I needed to record a ton of Before Breakfast episodes. I haven’t been able to do this during the day because my neighbors are putting on a new roof and hence the workers bang and run machinery intermittently from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily.

Did I mention that I am recovering from a cold? Not Covid, but not fun either.

The high schooler was supposed to take the bus this week (since I was on solo duty in the early mornings) but something went wrong two days in a row and I needed to load the three youngest kids into the van (waking two of them) to drive him to school.

I have also spent 1-2 hours on house stuff daily — including such fun activities as re-selecting carpets after realizing my first choices were not good.

So, even though it might seem a bit premature, I have been making Christmas plans. I put together my annual holiday fun list. I have been buying tickets and making reservations. For me, at least, knowing I have fun stuff coming up makes a not-so-great week feel better. I have something to look forward to! Here’s what I plan to do this year to celebrate the season:

Get matching family pajamas. They are ordered! We will open them on Christmas Eve (or the day before) I imagine, and take our family picture. I know that the 12-year-old in particular will wear them once for the picture solely as a favor to me and then never wear them again, but oh well.

See LumiNature at the zoo. I wound up purchasing tickets in advance for a lot of holiday light shows in November. I figure that the weather might be slightly warmer than in December and November weekends tend to be less busy than December ones. Plus, it stretches out the holiday fun! So we’re going to the zoo display soon. We will also go see Longwood Christmas and the holiday railway at Morris Arboretum over Thanksgiving weekend. (I may wind up getting a ticket to see Longwood solo too, as I did last year — it’s a nice family activity but sometimes the kids don’t want to linger in the same way I do…)

Take the boys to the Nutcracker. The performance is back on this year! Seeing this ballet is one of the annual events that really makes Christmas feel like Christmas to me. My two eldest children, interestingly, were the ones who raised their hands to go. We’ve got tickets (and our vaccine cards for the theater).

Go to a handful of in-person holiday parties. My husband has two festive work-related events we will be attending. Alas, between the fifth baby and the pandemic I’m not sure my festive dresses (dating back to 2018 at this point) fit me, so I will add dress shopping to the holiday fun list.

Go out for dinner for my birthday. My parents are coming to celebrate during the day (ok, the day before — my “birthday eve?”) and then stay with the kids while my husband and I go out.

Play Christmas carols on the piano. I’ll need to use the upright piano at the current house as the workmen are still pounding away over at the new one. (Much banging…I suppose my neighbors’ roof is payback for what we’ve put our neighbors at the new place through…).

Make the Lego Christmas set with whichever children wish to participate. I’m debating when to start this one as I don’t want to have small pieces and an in-progress project out while we’re showing the house. But maybe soon.

Buy holiday flowers for the house. We will need to put the poinsettias up high so babies and dogs don’t get into them. My daughter asked that I put “decorate for Christmas” generally on this list. We’ll get a tree of course, and put a wreath on the door. She wants to wrap her bedroom door in wrapping paper. This reminds me that I need to go to Costco to supplement the wrapping paper supply.

Read Christmas stories with the kids. Five kids and fourteen years in, we have a fine collection of Christmas stories. I just bought Mr. Willoughby’s Christmas Tree and the Fletcher Christmas book so we’ll add those to the list.

Visit the live nativity at church. Kind of like going to the zoo and church at the same time, I guess? There’s no Christmas pageant this year, so this will be our main Christmas service for the kids. I may sing in the Christmas Eve service of lessons and carols. They’re still limiting how many people can be in the choir loft so we will see if I make the cut…

What’s on your holiday fun list?