Tag Archives: time management

Standards for Adulthood

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It sounds dramatic to phrase it like this, but sometimes I sabotage myself. The other night I flipped open my computer at about 10:30, even though minutes before I had been planning to head to bed. As is inevitable, I ended up surfing the internet for over an hour, not really doing anything useful. And once I shut the laptop, I had trouble falling asleep because I’d gotten wound up from my piddling and from the light of the screen. So then once I didn’t sleep well, I didn’t get up to go to the gym the next morning, and I started the day feeling groggy and upset with myself for not exercising. I knew I really needed to go to bed, but I didn’t.

Sometimes making a decision like that makes me feel like an adult. “I’m an adult and I’m going to stay up until midnight watching Veronica Mars because I can and no one can tell me not to!!” And then sometimes it just makes me feel like crap.

I know it’s important to give yourself grace. But I also think it’s important not to give yourself too much. Especially as a type-A personality, I need to have standards for myself. Holding myself to certain standards is, I’d say, a large part of what has made me successful at the things I’ve been successful at in my life. My parents were never super hard on me about grades because they knew I was hard enough on myself, and in fact I made mostly A’s for my entire school career.

I believe that I am capable of a lot and I strive for near-perfection in most things. I am perhaps more disappointed in myself over perceived failures than others because I believe I can be better (even over silly things like giving in to eating a cookie in the kitchen at work). But there’s gotta be a line somewhere between beating myself up and being grumpy over mess-ups while still not sabotaging myself on a Sunday night when I’m lured in by the computer.

How do you handle “keeping yourself in line?” Do you struggle with standards, whether realistic or not?

Shirking the Duty-Driven Life

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I think I’m sort of obsessed with Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project in the way that some people get obsessed with a TV series or fiction writer. I first read her book almost 2 years ago and, to be honest, I didn’t get into it at first. Gretchen sort of annoyed me: her resolutions seemed so virtuous, and she was so meticulous and good about tracking them and following through with them. I was bothered by the concept of a happiness project because I felt like I could never do anything like it.

But as I read more of the book (for whatever reason, I felt compelled to carry on), I realized that part of why Gretchen bugged me is because, well, I’m sort of just like her in a lot of ways. Once I relaxed about it, I found myself really enjoying her project and even cheering for her. I then started following her blog, which has great nuggets of happiness truth, and I’ve been to hear her speak. She was so much nerdier and dorkier than I envisioned, and it only endeared her to me more! It felt like listening to someone you really like talk, and it’s clear she’s so passionate about this whole happiness thing that the lecture didn’t feel like a lecture at all. So anyway, I’m pretty much obsessed with Gretchen Rubin and her happiness project.

I still don’t feel like I can do a full-blown project of my own, but using happiness as a frame of reference has been good as I reflect on day-to-day life. I’ve blogged before about my book club, which was somewhat inspired by her truth that “What’s fun for you isn’t necessarily fun for other people and vice versa,” as well as other related concepts, like her Secrets of Adulthood.

As I was washing the dishes the other night, somewhat begrudgingly, I must admit, I had a flash: this isn’t particularly fun right now, but the happiness boost I’ll get from having it done later (and seeing the kitchen clean) will be well worth it. That felt Happiness Project-esque to me.

And as I’ve pondered that realization, I think I’ve come up with a happiness resolution:

Do one thing every day that I don’t have to do.

I am extremely duty-driven. Often that fact that something needs to be done is enough motivation to power me through doing it. But lately I’ve been finding that I’ve felt more grudging about these tasks, things like doing the laundry and going grocery shopping. Grudging is not a productive emotion. It’s not like I want Andy to take over the laundry and the grocery shopping. In fact, I specifically want to be the one in our family who does these things. So what good is it for me to feel grumpy about them? I’ve been trying to be more conscious of my attitude when I announce that I’m going to the store or the laundry room, and it’s been helping to remember that I ultimately am glad to be in charge of these tasks, but it’s still hard to get to the end of a day and feel like everything I did that day was just out of utility, that nothing I did was fun or just for me.

So I’m going to try to add small things that are not required. (And I hope that by trying to add them they don’t start feeling required.) I really am not sure what these things might be. Unfortunately, most of the things I can think of require spending money: stopping to get a fancy coffee drink, getting a pedicure, buying a new shirt, or renting a chick flick to watch online. And things like watching a chick flick and getting a pedicure take a fair amount of time, which is often of the essence. But I feel confident that there are things I can do that will make me happy that don’t need to be done. It’s my goal to figure out what some of them are and incorporate them into my life on a more regular basis.

What are some little happiness boosters in your life? Do you spend much time consciously considering your happiness level?

Learning for Learning’s Sake

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My husband Andy loves to learn. He uses his brain all day at work and then comes home and is still hungry to learn more! He’s constantly devouring technical books, exploring new computer languages, and researching things that interest him.

Until I saw how much a part of his life learning is, I thought I loved to learn, too. I was always a good student and enjoyed school, so I assumed it followed that I liked learning. But I’ve come to realize that I loved the trappings of school and learned more for its sake than for the sake of learning itself. I liked learning things so that I would make good grades. But take away that incentive and learning hasn’t been that important to me. I like looking lots of little things up on Wikipedia, IMDB, and the likes, but that’s trivia and not really true learning. Take, for example, my various thwarted attempts at learning Spanish! Without the structure of class, assignments, tests, and grades, I’m not really that motivated to succeed! It’s hard for Andy to understand this, and I have at times felt inferior to him because I can’t just make myself settle in a learn something.

As with being an “S” and therefore struggling to set goals for myself, I don’t want to use this as an out, but I also don’t think I need to beat myself up over it. We’re all different, and we all learn in different ways, so perhaps if I acknowledge my desire for external “gold stars” and find methods to learn that satisfy it, I can overcome my seeming inability to learn as an adult. I think it’s important to keep your mind fresh and not stagnate, so this year I’m going to try and put some weight behind that statement!

Another thing I need to acknowledge about my learning style is that I am not an independent learner. I don’t like studying in a vacuum  I ask a lot of questions, and I like to have someone there for when I get stuck. If I’m left to my own devices to figure something out, I’ll more than likely just quit rather than power through. I know there’s a lot of benefit to struggling through problems, but that’s just the way it is for me. I don’t necessarily like it, but again, I think acknowledging one’s own nature is an important first step to making progress.

The two main things I’m planning to work on learning are computer programming and Spanish. In both cases, I think I can set myself up for more success than I’ve had in the past by acknowledging my learning personality and shortcomings and trying to address those from the start. With learning to program, I thankfully have a great resource right in my own home: my husband! I’m walking the delicate line of trying to do some things on my own in order to absorb them better while at the same time asking enough questions to keep myself from feeling stuck and giving up. I’ve read through a goofy book called Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby, which helped me by laying the foundation of definitions that I felt I needed, but I then dove in and wrote a simple program with help from Andy. I did most of the thinking, as far as laying out what the program needed to do, but he helped by providing resources and explaining things I didn’t know how to do. My next step is to work through Learn Ruby the Hard Way. Unlike Why’s Guide, this book forces you to work through actual code (rather than just reading it, which often causes my eyes to glaze over), so I think it will be good for me to not be able to cop out by skimming the examples. I’m also planning to dive into a meetup group called Py Ladies, which I mentioned in my last post about coding. Hopefully this will help keep my enthusiasm up, provide me extra incentive to keep learning (outside of coding for coding’s sake and for being able to do it with Andy), and maybe even play into my resolution to work on relationships in 2013!

To learn Spanish, I have honestly wanted to just take a class somewhere. However, that requires time and money, and I am stubborn enough that I really feel I ought to be able to do it on my own! I have such a strong background in French that you think it wouldn’t be so hard. I’ve found a couple of online resources that I’m going to explore. One is a free software available through the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library called Mango Languages. I set up an account for it last year when I said I was going to learn Spanish but then never did anything with it. It seems Rosetta Stone-esque, but I love that it’s available to me for free! I’ve also just set up an account for a website called Memrise. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it definitely gives you incentives, and even has a competitive aspect, which I think will play out well for me. The lessons seem short and accessible, and there are a lot of them available.

I don’t know if I would have the impetus to even try to learn if I weren’t married to someone like Andy. I might be content to just read my fluffy books, watch TV, etc. But then again,  I might not. I think marriage brings out both the best and the worst in us, and hopefully Andy’s commitment to self-improvement and learning will begin to bring out a similar spark in me. It certainly can’t hurt that he will be endlessly supportive of any efforts I make in this area. In the past few months, holiday busy-ness aside, I’ve felt like life has kind of gotten away from me, and I’ve been struggling to even make time to read and update my blog amongst all the household and work tasks that need to be done. It would be easy to just accept that as the status quo and not try to grow or fit anything else in. But Andy has even offered to pitch in with housework if it will help me have more free time for pursuits like this because he is such a strong believer in the importance of learning! His enthusiasm will hopefully be a good inspiration for me as I stretch outside of my comfort zone and try to fall in love with learning.

What’s your learning style? Do you like exploring new things for their own sake?

Goal Setting: “S” Through and Through

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I am epically bad at setting goals–long-term, short-term, daily, weekly…I sit down to try and come up with things I would like to do and my mind goes utterly blank. This seems odd to me because I’m such a planner and love having things spelled out. My layman’s psychoanalysis theory is that it’s because I’m an “S” on the Myers-Briggs spectrum. According to one description, this means, “I’m concerned with what is actual, present, current, and real” and that “sometimes I pay so much attention to facts, either present or past, that I miss new possibilities.” On the flip side of the spectrum is the “N” personality type, who is “interested in new things and what might be possible, so that [she] think[s] more about the future than the past” and even “sometimes think[s] so much about new possibilities that [she] never look[s] at how to make them a reality.” I don’t want to use this as an “out” to simple excuse myself from trying to create goals for myself, but I do think it’s useful to acknowledge that it might be harder for me than for others. I don’t think I have a visionary bone in my body, because if I even start to let myself dream I end up getting caught up in the steps it would take to get to that dream so quickly that I can’t get excited about it!

I love this infographic about what makes a good goal:

Source: moneysavingmom.com via Laura on Pinterest

And I also love these two lists of questions I found from Simple Mom:

I haven’t done it yet, but I’d like to spend some time thinking through these questions and using the SMART tactic to try and give myself some structure for moving ahead. Most of the bloggers I respect and enjoy reading are excellent goal-setters and I love following their progress as they strive to achieve dreams, make practical advances, and have fun new experiences. I also love the concept of having a word or two that you’re hoping to let define your year; for example, Money Saving Mom’s word for 2013 is “margin.”

I don’t know my word.

I don’t have New Year’s Resolutions.

But I do have a few thoughts of areas where I’d like to focus more and perhaps eventually set some goals (can I say that I have a goal to set goals?!):

  • learning (more on that to come in a subsequent post)
  • relationships
  • organization

Specifically, in the area of relationships, I want to think about cultivating and continuing friendships I already have as well as expanding relationships I’m beginning to build. I’ll do the first by being intentional about making phone calls and by sending frequent texts whenever I’m thinking of someone. I really hate talking on the phone, but every time I convince myself to call a friend or to pick up when a friend calls, I find myself engrossed in our conversation, and I inevitably hang up the phone thinking, “Oh yeah! It’s really nice to talk to people you love!” I think for now I will aim for having an extended conversation with at least one far-flung friend a month. And on the text message front, I’ve realized it’s SO, so easy to shoot someone a text. And while it may seem a bit impersonal, it’s better than nothing! And often, a simple text can encourage a chain of texts, or an email, or even *gasp* a phone call.

As I build new relationships in Atlanta, I want to continue meeting with my book club and potentially attend other events with the women in that group. I also want to try and have a monthly girls’ night out with some people. This has been happening sporadically, and we always have a great time, so even though planning the outings often proves difficult, it’s well worth my while to send a few emails and calendar invites. Finally, I think I might go WAY out on a limb and ask a select few people if they’d like to run together occassionally. I went for a run the other day on the Beltline and had a blast; it may turn me into a runner yet! And if it’s already something I’m trying to do, why not involve a burgeoning friend in my efforts and kill two birds with one stone?

As far as organization, Andy and I will be staying put in our apartment for another year (at least as far as we know at this point), which is fine, but I want to purge and re-organize as if we were going to be moving. We live in a fairly small space. All of our stuff fits, even with all the shopping I’ve done in the past year, but I think we definitely have more than we need, and the things we do need could be organized more effectively. I think it’s healthy to evaluate your possessions on a regular basis, and since it’s been awhile since we moved, I’d say it’s time! Hopefully we can make a few bucks selling some of the things on Craisglist, eBay, or Amazon. I also think this activity will help me be content in our living situation–we love our neighborhood, and I love the majority of the stuff in our apartment, but when things are crammed in and disorganized it’s easy to become frustrated. I’m planning to set a weekend soon to do this with Andy, so I’ll report back and let you know how it goes!

Do you have any resolutions or goals for 2013? What’s your process for planning for the future? 

Works for Me Wednesday: Weekend Crockpotting

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Until recently, I’ve always thought of my crockpot as a weekday timesaver. I’ve been using it at least once a week lately to have a great dinner ready when I get home from work with little to no fuss on my part. But I recently signed up for a volunteer role at church on Sundays that keeps me at church until about 1:00 on the days I do it. Couple that with doing a weekly Bible study at 7 PM on Sundays, and the day often gets away from me! It struck me one week that I could set the crockpot up before I headed to church and then I could grocery shop and do all my regular Sunday afternoon activities and STILL have dinner on the table in time for us to eat together at 6 before I needed to leave! (Though, funny story, the first Sunday I tried this I got home from church and FREAKED OUT because I couldn’t figure out why the apartment smelled like something was cooking. Oh right! It’s because something WAS cooking! It was Brunswick stew, to be precise.)

You might be thinking, “DUH!” but it was a bit of a revelation for me. It’s also nice if you have some activities keeping you out of the house on a Saturday but still want to have a fun dinner to eat while watching a football game or movie. I always feel this compulsion to make weekend dinners “special,” but there’s honestly often not much more time to cook on the weekend than there is during the week! Plus if I’m in the middle of other things, it’s not always fun to have to drop everything and get immersed in cooking. So AS I TYPE THIS (it’s Saturday), I have these crockpot enchiladas going to accompany our football watching this evening!

Crockpots also tend to get a bad rap for only allowing you to cook unhealthy things, but they’re really quite versatile. Sure, Velveeta Rotel dip is delicious, but you can also make things like this healthy black bean soup or another one of our favorites, lentils and sausage.

Here are a few of my favorite game-watching, crowd-pleasing, weekend-worthy crockpot recipes:

And a few that I’m looking forward to trying:

I’m so glad I realized how nice it can be to use the crockpot as a conduit to having a tasty meal on the table even on the weekend! It makes my leisure time feel much more enjoyable, and leaves me time to make pumpkin scones if I happen to feel like it…(more on that later in the week).

Do you have any time-saving weekend trick? How do you use your slow cooker most often?

 
I’m linking up to Works for Me Wednesday at WeAreThatFamily.com!
works for me wednesday at we are that family