Comments on: Day 1 – Evening post (September 2023 Time Tracking Challenge)

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 10:26:09 +0000

I’m loosely tracking my time for earlier this week due to traveling back to the country from Italy on Sunday, resting on Monday at my sister’s house, and driving from Atlanta to Louisiana with my youngest son and dad on Tuesday. It was a wonderful family trip. So, today (Wednesday), I will track more consistently. I really need to track my time for a couple of weeks after this week.

By: Laurence Hansen

Laurence Hansen — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 19:49:37 +0000

My day 1 results are mixed. I kept good contemporaneous records, but the amount of “real work” I accomplished was pretty low.
I’ll focus on the good news: I’m sticking to the time tracking, and it’s encouraging to see that much of my planning held up in action.

By: Erica

Erica — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 19:06:08 +0000

I tracked time for one day, which I sincerely hope was not a typical day because my “workday” was 4 hours long and consisted mostly of laundry. And then last night my 3-year-old woke up several times between 11 and 1, resulting in a very rough start to my morning, and I just couldn’t bear it. Maybe there are no actually typical weeks, but the first week of the school year, while potty-training a very recalcitrant toddler, is atypical in a lot of unpleasant ways.

As a half-measure, I’m tracking how much time I spend on “real” work, with the aim of increasing it over time. So far I have logged 3 hours this week. Which is not zero…

By: BethC.

BethC. — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 13:03:15 +0000

I’m not doing the challenge this week because we are on vacation in Athens. Although the heat has apparently subsided since the summer, the sun is still strong in the afternoon. I’m glad that my past trip planning self wisely scheduled only one anchor activity per day either first thing in the morning or after 4 PM. It is a little before 4 pm here, and my husband is currently sleeping off a food coma from a great 4 hour food tour that we did earlier.
Speaking of trances and comas, what IS it about Ms. Rachel? My son and DIL limit my 20 month old grandson’s screen time, but when he gets antsy during dinners out or bigger family dinners, they roll out the big guns (Ms. Rachel on the IPad) and he enters a trancelike state…..

By: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 12:20:15 +0000

In reply to Coree.

@Coree- wow, 4:30 – good luck! And nice work on the beagle rescue – that’s cute how proud your son is!

By: Coree

Coree — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 09:55:31 +0000

I tracked yesterday but was mostly horrified about the time I spent in transit due to a slow kiddo/missed bus, and just the transport stars not aligning. I realised though that the advantage of the train leaving the city in the AM is that I can always get a table seat, often all to myself. On Sunday, I made my list and wrote (B) next to the emails/things to do that I could do on my phone and (T) next to the things I needed my laptop to do but could be done on the train. So I’m using that time well enough to justify a shorter day in the office.

For some inexplicable reason, the class I’m organising replaced 1 of the weekly lectures with a podcast. So I’ve scripted that this AM but am definitely just recording it in one take. Luckily I’m doing the heavy lifting of the course organisation but only teaching 1 week, so I’ve just got to do it once. I’d much rather show up in a room and talk than have to record something.

Exciting time log entry for this morning – rescued Bella the beagle. T and I were cycling to school and spotted a beagle on the loose, running into the road. Somehow we managed to grab her, look at the number on her tag and call her owner, and have a cuddle. I could have been annoyed by irresponsible pet owners (but it’s a beagle, they are intrinsically naughty) but mostly I enjoyed how excited T was “My best accomplishment to date…”. He marched into breakfast club to tell everyone about it.

My time log will start at 4:30am tomorrow, so my plan is to be asleep by 9.