Time is scarce. This has never been more obvious before this year, which right now has something or other to do with this happy chappy…
Gideon is nearly 1, and he’s a really cheerful fun little boy, and we’ve had a fantastic time together. A lot of my challenge to find time is so that I can enjoy the time we’re together more fully, not distracted and preoccupied.
For me, work, sleep, commuting, and errands take up about 19-20 hours a day (Monday to Friday); the remaining four to five hours are still enough to do a lot of what I want, but they aren’t a nice contiguous block, so I have to be organised to use them. At the weekend, we’re usually off visiting people and having adventures; I think that this is really important, (almost) every weekend should have some fun, memorable trip out.
In the week, I like to do things like writing my app, playing wargames, occasionally reading, learning new things, and fitting that sort of thing in is really important for me personally in order to stay sane. Babies are hard, even though they’re fun.
Here’s what I find works well: I get up at 5:30, leaving the house around 6. This sounds far harder than it is, unless you get up at 9 there’s very little difference in getting up this early - at least that’s how I find it. The big difference is in the commute. I save at least 40 minutes commuting time each way by getting on my way early in the morning, and leaving the office at 4. I tend to arrive at work at about 6:45, which gives me a solid hour and a quarter to do my own stuff before I start work. This is usually where I work on my app or learn new things - and then I carry on at lunchtime where I left off.
I find that I have to have clearly defined tasks all broken down and ready to use little chunks of time like this well - no special system particularly, but I know what I’m using that time for before I get to it, so I don’t get distracted too easily by the Internet.
When I get back home in the evening, I love having some time to spend with Gideon, playing a little before the route march that is the three B’s - Bath, Bottle, and Bedtime. After that, cooking (which I love to do) and dinner, then either other errands or watching/playing somepthing with Jennie, or maybe some reading or programming again.
The next step in this is to try to find more time from things that don’t matter whether Jennie or I are the ones to do them or not - reducing the errand workload. In principle I really believe that time is orders of magnitude more valuable than money, so spending money to get time, by having laundry and ironing done, or having a cleaner, could be a fantastic way to spend money.
It’s not rocket science, but it takes discipline, as it would be so easy to sleep in a bit later, getting to work at 8, or 8:30 and then home later as well (much later, as the traffic gets so bad). It also takes support from Jennie; we both need time to do our own things. This must be one of the most difficult things, I think, in being a single parent - no time for yourself would be crushing.