The Colors of a Day

I'm on a new schedule.  I like it, but it's bugging me.  

I didn't realize how much I wrote in casual bursts.  I had no awareness of how often I'd sit at my computer during lunch, check blogs and then write out a few paragraphs or pages on a project before moving on to do laundry or whatever.  It's not like I blacked it out.  I just didn't comprehend the total volume I'd produce on a daily basis this way.  

Well, the kids are back in school and I share the computer now, plus I've fallen way behind on a bunch of stuff.  I sat down with my DH and wrote a list.  My gawds it was long, and later I realized I'd forgotten a couple of things.  

The driveway gate, for one.  Weirdly, a few times now people have pulled into our driveway at odd hours and 'got lost.'  Why they pick our driveway, I don't know.  Those of you who've been here know our driveway is narrow and not easy to get into, and there's no obvious (at first blush, anyway) place to turn around.  The worst was a pickup full of drunk guys who about took out the corner post on the pasture.  At o'dark thirty, no less.  Needless to say I had a gun in one hand and the phone in the other, because for all I knew they were going to eventually park, get out, and start some mischief.  I was home alone with the kids.  I wasn't in the mood to play, or go out and ask questions.   They eventually went away, but since then I've wanted a gate.  I don't mind people pulling in to stop and turn around, and there will be (barely) enough room to pull in off the road if someone has to.  But they will not have the ability to casually pull all the way up to the house anymore.  

The other project I forgot about is also neighborhood related.  Kids (if it's not kids, that's another notch against the human race) around here entertain themselves with bashing mailboxes.  After replacing ours twice, I'm done.  The next will be encased in brick.  I have the bricks.  I have a new, non-dented mailbox that still has its flag waiting in the laundry closet.  I just have to pour a footing and build the darned thing.  I figure it'll take a few days.  Naturally, I haven't even dug out the footing yet.

The contents of the list aren't really important, though.  The important thing was that they weren't getting done, and needed to get done.  I needed a system to get myself to work on them daily.  Waking up and deciding what to do today wasn't working.  I needed a mindless schedule to follow.  So I set one up and took it for a test drive today.

The new schedule is, with some room to change order some days:  Email early, workout in the morning, deal with something off my long list morning to lunch, business hour biz after lunch, more work on something on the list or housework, lavish some attention on the kids, make dinner and eat, email and write at night.

I have meetings, and most evenings I want to go for a walk with my DH and the dogs, and the kids have fencing--this isn't a ritual.  But it did seem to work today.  I just miss my writing.  I think one thing I can do is allow for the fact that I'll need breaks from my list items, and during those breaks I can have my water or tea or whatever and write for a while.  I'll just need to watch the time.  Sadly, though, early morning writing is some of my most productive time, and these days I'm staying up late to take care of all things online and writing too.  So I'll think about this arrangement.  I may have to switch it around and get up very early, before the kids, and try working on writing and my online biz then.  That work will get interrupted when the morning school routine kicks in, but I don't think that's a bad thing.  And I'd like to see the kids off to school.  I miss that.  (My DH has been getting up with them, which is awesome and I think the kids love it.)

Once the schedule settles I think I'll end up with a very productive system.  I think it'll become habit just in time for winter.  Hopefully that'll offset my tendency to laze around during the cold weather and just write all day.