Alive, Awake and Working

I continue to feel swept away by the undertow.

I have come up with a good plan for keeping my sandcastle intact for medium- to small-sized waves of distractions, spontaneity and chaos - but the big waves have decided to keep showing up...

I like, though, how the line between work and fun has diminished. Case in point: I spent a good part of the evening working at a wine-tasting event - going back and forth between helping out the company and enjoying myself as a patron. There was no need to put a solid demarcation between my time working and time playing - with the key exception being, I need to devote my entire attention to customers when I am tasked with serving them.

My goal is to work as a coder - I spent another hour this evening working through JavaScript and HTML lessons. The line in coding between work and play is very thin for me. I hope to travel that line extensively.

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As a final note, last night I dreamt that an Icelandic woman fell passionately in love with me and wanted to sleep with me. I told her - not yet. I need to work out my commitment with Penelope, first.

My easy, clear, automatic interpretation of this is: the woman is not Icelandic - she is Iceland. I've got to get my affairs in order; figure out where I stand with Penelope and my feelings for her - and our commitment to each other. I must get everything settled and ready and move over there. For to live in a land is to sleep with her.

I'm giving myself 5 years, maximum.

Dream well, all.

Report

So I came to a few subtle but important conclusions, after spending some time figuring out how to spend my time.

1. I will be doing less focused exercise and more garden work. This was the most significant sacrifice I have made. I will still be running, but I will end my insistence on doing a big block of exercise every morning. Instead, I will be more active. Better use of time. This was a clear one.
2. Cleaning just on the weekend, with the exception of cleaning the kitchen every evening.
3. 60 minutes of unplanned time on school days (currently Monday and Wednesday - though this will change soon) and 90 minutes on other nights. It's not a whole lot, but it's a start.
4. A goal of spending 4 hours a day on a single activity outside of work. Not ready for that yet. But I'm going to keep in mind that that's what I'm aiming for.
5. A need to keep on top of my little chores and affairs. To that end, I've scheduled another date with myself for Monday night, where I'll go over all the little chores/car repairs/clothing repairs/documents etc. I need to keep track of and present them in a more accessible, useful form. On some night after that I'll be doing the same with my finances.
6. A need for more time to understand myself in a more direct way. This didn't get resolved.

That's it. More to come - when I have time. This weekend promises to be busy, with tomorrow being a date night and the next three spent on my father's visit to town. It will be a good break from the ordinary, so I'm looking forward to it.

Dream well.

A Date with Myself

Okay, I am very poor in free time, and spending my pittance quite poorly to boot, wasting it on time-killing nonsense that provides me with very little.

I am going to spend some time tomorrow thinking about how to spend my time and coming up with some kind of plan.

I am going to have to divest myself from some activities I feel I need to make time for. I do not think I actually have enough waking hours to do all the things I want to do - even if I subtracted all the things I need to do. And I will not be sacrificing sleep - at least not yet.

I am writing about it here to make myself that much more accountable. Ok, here's the plan:

I will spend 30 minutes tomorrow, from 7:30pm to 8:00pm, writing down all the tasks and projects I need to complete and want to complete - estimate the time commitment and come up with some kind of schedule. The schedule will consist of a daily/weekly regimen as well as individual events marked on my calendar.

There is an important rule I will follow: I must set a maximum amount of time in which to perform these tasks that is less than the total amount of waking hours. That is, a certain amount of time will have nothing scheduled at all - not work, not study, not relaxation, not vegetation, not play - not anything. It won't even show up on the schedule.

This is important, because I need to remember that my life is not entirely in my control, and I have to allow room for both the weight of circumstances and the pressure of my own spontaneous soul.

There it is.

See you all tomorrow, then, with the results.

Dream well.

Buffering...

I'm still around - just need to adjust my sense of time and place a little bit...