Oooh, another thrilling post about time management

Writing in the mornings has not been going well. I don’t get much done, and then I am sleepy (and mad at myself) for the rest of the day. So I decided on a new tactic during my drive to work this morning…meticulous scheduling! I’ve done this at different points in my life when I’ve been really stressed out, and it helped. This isn’t really a time of great stress, but obviously I need some time organization. I only have four months left to finish my first draft, and if I continue down my current path, it’s not going to get done. I wrote out this schedule for my weekday mornings and evenings:

5:00 — Wake up, pump, coffee & granola bar
5:30 — Chores
6:00 — Shower, dry hair, partially dress
6:30 — Coffee, wake baby, nurse
7:15 — Play, feed solids, baby goes back to bed
7:45 — Finish getting dressed, brush teeth, pack food for the day, prep milk bottles, pack pumping stuff, take dogs out, feed dogs
8:00 — Leave for work

5:00 — Get home, take dogs out, put bottles in fridge, get changed
5:20 — Hug baby, chat with the husband
5:30 — Feed solids, practice drinking from cup
6:00 — Bath
6:30 — PJs and nurse
7:00 — Bedtime story
7:10 — Baby bedtime, start dinner
8:00 — Eat
8:30 — Clean up dinner, wash pumping parts and bottles
9:15 — Write
10:30 — Pump
10:50 — Get ready for bed
11:00 — zzzzz

Kinda like the schedules that District 13 prints on its citizens’ arms every day, no? The evening is more flexible than the morning. Baby only gets a bath every other night. Sometimes we order out instead of cooking for ourselves. Stuff like that. Any extra time will be rolled in “Write” unless I need an earlier bedtime that night. And of course the baby could decide to mess up my best laid plans at any time, which is fine. Gotta be flexible with a youngling in the house. We’ll see how this goes! I’m giving myself a couple of weeks to judge whether or not this will up my productivity.

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In the spirit of organization, I will also share this scheme I came up with over the weekend. Behold, my Notes app:

I decided to keep open lists for the stores we frequent the most often (CostCo, the cheap Asian market, and the local chain grocery stores), a running to-do list for myself, and someplace to jot down good lines of dialogue for the novel as I think of them. I can use that list for general ideas too, I suppose, but right now it’s just dialogue pieces, hence the name. Now whenever I think “Oh hey, we need to pick up x the next time we’re out,” instead of letting it flit out of my brain 5 seconds later, I will pull out my phone and WRITE IT DOWN. It is really sad that it has taken me this long to realize that writing shit down is the key to pretending to have a good memory.

Now if I could just figure out how to share the grocery list notes with my husband’s phone…that would be awesome.

Friday Five

1. Today I read this post on Stereogum about Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes turning 20 this year. First of all, yikes, 20 years?! I remember reading about Tori in an issue of Sassy Magazine, not long after Little Earthquakes came out. And then she was my first real grown-up concert with no parents along. I’m not a Tori superfan or anything, but I did love her first couple of albums. So I listened to LE on Spotify at my desk this afternoon, and it was still fantastic. It is one of those albums that, in this age of digital randomization, I cannot fathom hearing with the songs out of order. It’s a work of art; you have to listen to it straight through!

2. Incidentally, I went to high school with the dude who wrote that post. I was SO TERRIFIED of him, because he was all tall and cool and into music and everything. I sat behind him in bio my sophomore year, and one day this other kid who sat next to him asked me what kind of music I listened to and I mumbled “you know…music” because inside I was like “OMFGFGFG you cannot talk about music in front of him!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t say anything stoooopid!” Yes, it was exhausting being me as a teenager. Anyway…apparently I could have just said that I liked Tori Amos, and then we could have talked about our feelings and stuff. Sigh.

3. I totally forgot that this is three day weekend. Very excited about that.

4. I woke up at 4:45 every morning except one this week to write. It worked out pretty well. I think I’m going to keep doing it, but I need to work in a couple of longer writing sessions during the evening or weekend too, because I just can’t get out much more than 500 words during my morning hour.

5. Yesterday morning I was reading Catching Fire as I was nursing my daughter, when I got to the part where they announced the Quarter Quell stuff. I was shocked at the thought of Katniss and Peeta having to go back to the Hunger Games. So shocked that I actually said “Oh Shit!!” out loud. The baby looked at me like “What the hell is your problem, milk lady?” I told her that the book is too scary for babies, and I would explain it to her when she’s older.

Finding the time

Finding the time to write is getting really difficult. Now that the baby is eating solids in the morning, attending to her needs is taking up a 90 minute block before work. On one hand, I love it, because I get to spend more time with her. On the other hand, it sucks, because now I have to wake up at 4:45 (!) if I want to get in an hour of writing and have a prayer of making it to work on time. I’ve done it twice; the day I did it last week was fine, except that I overslept by a lot the following morning because I was exhausted. I did it again this morning–so far so good, although I am super tired.

My other option is writing in the evening, but for some reason, that is just not attractive to me. I feel like my brain doesn’t work as well at night. I’ve thought about taking one night per week and heading out to the local 24-hour coffee shop right after the baby goes to sleep to get in a good 3 or 4 hour writing session. But I don’t know…I like my evenings at home and the thought of having to come back and pump and then wash my pumping parts and bottles before I can go to bed…it all sounds very exhausting. And I don’t know what’s more productive for me: having an hour for writing everyday or having one or two longer writing sessions per week. UGH. I also need to figure out how to fit exercise into my life, because my pants are getting tight, y’all.

I guess I just need to figure it out through trial and error, like everything else in life.

Rambles

It’s Sunday night (boo!), but I don’t have to go back to work until Tuesday (yay!). I’m on a freezer cooking tear, because I want to have some stuff on deck for the nights when I don’t feel like cooking. I have half a batch of pasta bake in the freezer already; I’m making beef stew and dough for dinner rolls right now. Last night I roasted two chickens and stripped the meat for…something. I haven’t decided yet. Probably chicken noodle soup, chicken pot pie, and maybe enchiladas or taquitos? I also need to catch up on making baby food. I have apples, green beans, and sweet potatoes waiting! I guess I will spend most of tomorrow in the kitchen.

I didn’t get very much writing done during my break from work, but I did get some (YA) reading done! I finished Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher in less than 24 hours; it was such a page turner. I feel like there’s nothing left to say about it that hasn’t already been said. It was deeply affecting and so well-plotted and paced. I originally went to the bookstore to pick up Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler’s new book, The Future of Us, but it’s still in hardcover, and I am kind of allergic to buying hardcover books, heh. I think I’ll save it for my Kindle app. Also, my sister lent me her set of the Hunger Games trilogy, and I’m halfway through The Hunger Games right now. The violence has made me nauseated several times so far, hahaha. I am such a wimp! But I’m sticking it out, because Katniss is such an awesome character, the story is so mesmerizing, and I know that the rest of the books can’t be as bloody as the first one, right? Right??

I’m very excited for 2012, as long as it’s not the end of the world and all. My husband and I have a lot of great things planned for  this year, and it will be our first full year as a 3-person family with Cara. Bring it!!