I finally did it! Lest you think that the “it” in question is something interesting and exciting, let me hasten to tell you what “it” is. For the first time ever, I completed an entire week of time-tracking, of writing down the exact way that I spend my days.
I have tried to time track before, and failed on the first day. Truthfully, I have failed in the first few hours of the first day of tracking; for one, it is so boring. It’s boring and tedious to write down the number of minutes spent doing any given thing. For another thing, when I last tried this the boys were in junior high and I was teaching a LOT of yoga classes, and the sheer number of drudgery-and-food-related things that I recorded within the first few hours of the day was incredibly depressing. This is how I am spending my one wild and precious life? I thought, before abandoning the project.
But I was curious, for reasons I’ll get to later, and so I set myself up for success by creating a two-page-a-day chart that would record start and end times, and I cut down on the daily tedium by filling out in advance the first seven things that I do every single day without fail, thinking, correctly, that once the morning routine was recorded, the rest would be easier.
The results were not unexpected. A big swath of my week is devoted to yoga, exercise, and dog walking, and another to gardening. Writing takes up a good deal of it, as well as food preparation and household tasks, which feel less drudge and onerous these days, personal care, reading, and spending time with my husband, kids, and friends. Remember that old story about putting the big rocks in the jar first, and then allowing the little rocks to take up the spaces in between? At this point in my life, everything feels like Big Rocks, and, simultaneously, nothing does.
My days are pleasantly full, and while none of my daily activities feels optional, they all technically are. Even personal care, food preparation, and household tasks: strictly speaking I COULD really let things go in the hygiene and beauty department, I COULD allow the house to become a cesspool of filth or, more realistically, hire that out, and I COULD DoorDash all our meals or rely solely on frozen pizza and toast. I could! I won’t, but I could.
What I’m saying is that everything that occurs in my day feels Very Important to me. I am not a person who scrolls much, but I do like to check my Facebook and Instagram once or twice a day, and in no way does this feel like a waste of time. I love to check if it’s someone’s birthday, or if someone is on vacation or bought a new house or outfit, I love to see if someone’s kids are doing something interesting or if their pet is sleeping in a cute way. I want to see someone’s shoes or what they made for dinner. I am here for even the most mundane of updates: you want to talk about the new Zumba class you’re going to, or the shitty day you had at work, or the weird sign that was at the community centre? I AM HERE FOR YOU.
The upshot to all of this is that I am very nosy, and I cannot get enough details of other people’s lives.
It is this nosiness that brings me to the whole reason I did this time tracking experiment in the first place, and that is the blogging community. I always think about blogging as a hobby, but then my friend Pearl (HI PEARL) wrote about creating as a way of life, and blogging is part of that. It can take up as much or as little time as a person might want. It is important to me to put out a weekly post that is interesting, entertaining, and, most of all, polished, and so it takes hours to go from Idea to Published. It is also important that I respond to any and all comments; if a person takes the time to comment, I want to take the time to respond. I have time for people who have time for me.
This is a nice segue into the other side of blogging, which is community building. If a person reads and comments on my blog, I am going to read and comment on theirs; it’s common courtesy in my mind, not exactly a Quid Pro Quo, but more like a Keeping Up With My Correspondence. Plus, as I said before, I’m nosy. I want to know what’s going on in your life!
All takes time, of course, and that is a finite resource. I budget between 30-45 minutes a day for blog reading and commenting, and it was this time budget that was the reason I did the time tracking experiment in the first place. I wanted to see if I was, indeed, keeping within the budget. I did, clocking in at an average of 40 minutes per day. Most of this happens first thing in the morning while I’m drinking my coffee; if you’ve ever had an unhinged or incomprehensible comment from me, that’s why. It’s early! The coffee hasn’t kicked in yet!
How we spend our days is how we spend our lives, and I’m happy with how I fill my time. I wasn’t sure, moving here, how things would go. I wasn’t sure how my husband would handle retirement, I wasn’t sure how I would handle not having kids to take care of or yoga classes to teach, but, as we all know, worry is a waste of time. Everything worked itself out: my days are full and fulfilling, and I didn’t need a time tracker to tell me that.
Weekly Reading
Shopgirls. A beach read – but make it in a department store in the 1980s. This was a very quick and light read about a young woman who, despite her youth and her Salvation Army outfits, is the top salesgirl in I Magnin, a fancy San Francisco department store. It was cute and diverting, a nice easy read for a sunny weekend. Thanks to Bijoux (HI BIJOUX) for the recommendation!
Fun For The Whole Family. Dysfunctional families, childhood trauma, family secrets, complicated sibling relationships, estrangement – but make it light and fun! A lot of heavy topics in this very engaging and diverting read about four estranged siblings coming together in the middle of a North Dakota winter for the first time in years, but the book is not heavy at all. It’s sweet and lovely, a heartwarming pick-me-up, and another great summer read.
I have an important garden update! My perennial garden is in full bloom, including the butterfly bush.
The flowers are frequented by bees and butterflies, and I finally caught on camera the enormous yellow butterfly that has been zipping around lately.
It made me so happy, and reminded me of my friend Suz (HI SUZ), who is everyone’s favourite expert in butterfly husbandry. She had recently talked about HER butterfly bush, and I am heartened to think of us on opposite corners of the continent, enjoying the same things. This community – together but apart – is the one of the best things about blogging, and one I do not take for granted. Thank you, everyone, for being here and being a part of my life. xo
You’re onto something when you admit to being nosy and its correlation to personal blogging. I feel the same way, but also a little weird about wanting to know the deets. I’m complicated, but sincere. Love the photo of the flowers. Those coneflowers are stunning.
Thanks so much Ally! I love our collective nosiness. I just love knowing the details of everyone’s day and nothing is too mundane for me, it seems. I get weirdly fascinated by the silliest things – what dish detergent, what book did you read, what kind of pens do you like?
HI NICOLE
First, thank you for the shout out to my blog post. Like you, I am interested (i.e. nosy) about the details in people’s lives. I want to see that corner of your house, what you’re cooking, the banana bread you made. (And of course, if I don’t see bananas on your counter I start to worry that all is not right). What an interesting experiment to log how one spends one time. I’m not sure I’m up to that task, but I’ll think about it. The blogging community is something that I’ve been talking about with other bloggers (stay tuned, something might be coming!) I so enjoy your blog posts and I LOVE your garden.
Not to worry, there are currently 11 bananas on my counter and grocery day is Wednesday! I love seeing everyone’s lives too – I want to know allllll the details! I’m looking forward to your post (I look forward to all your posts, who am I kidding).
Love that you share you are nosy- I think am also pretty nosy. In fact I zoomed in and read the entries in your time log – wondering how it takes 28 min to vacuum the bathroom floor? I must be doing something wrong. Your garden is absolutely spectacular- how satisfying that must be after all your garden work.
Hahahah no Pat! It’s three things! Vacuum, cleaning the bathroom, and spraying and wiping the paw prints off the floor! If it took me 28 minutes to vacuum the bathroom *I* would be doing something wrong!
I look forward to your blog post every week!
Thank you so much Kandra! I appreciate you!
I’m swooning over your butterfly bush. It’s so beautiful and I think the butterflies must be very happy in your yard.
I love your blogging and social media attitudes. I also love reading the details of people’s lives, and I love reading the details of your life, so thank you for sharing! I always look forward to your posts. I wish I had been able to use social media more wisely. But now that’s a thing of the past.
I love how you said your days are pleasantly full. That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling lately! It’s such a nice feeling.
Michelle, it’s such a great feeling! Pleasantly full, not crazy, just nice!
I think social media can be a total drag, but I feel like I’ve gotten my feed so it’s just a nice mix of friends doing their things. I have muted anything that I didn’t want to see and I think it’s finally paid off!
LOL, I must be nosy, too! I think of blogging as keeping up with my friends around the world. And I really value my friends! I’m glad you liked my book recommendation. Lately, I feel as though I’ve been reading books that I would NOT recommend. Currently, it’s ‘Atmosphere’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Normally, I love this author, but this book and the Carrie Sota one have both been snooze fests for me.
Your garden is so gorgeous. The curved landscaping reminds me of the ones we saw at Monticello a few years ago. So visually appealing!
Also, can I just say that I love to see bloggers’ handwriting?? It never matches what I picture someone’s handwriting to be, which is something that I actually love!
Bijoux, I’m not planning to read that book, it didn’t seem interesting to me. I’m kind of hot and cold on TJR, I’ve liked a couple books but she’s not a go-to for me.
I love looking at people’s handwriting too! And I love how nosy we all are!
Great post, Nicole! I can’t believe how big a part of my life blogging has become- specifically, my involvement in the blogging community. When I was on vacation I was constantly saying “one of my blogging friends… (said this, lives there, read this book…)” and I realized how full my life has become, through blogging. I’ll be heading over to read Pearl’s post next (a new friend?) Oh yes, and I’m also nosy : ) I love hearing the details of other people’s lives. Why is that so fun???
Those flowers are so pretty!
Pearl is amazing, you are going to love her!
I talk about my blog friends all the time! I love that we are all connected across the miles.
Nicole, thank you for all the new blogging friends you sent over to me! How lovely is this blogging community.
It’s so great! I’m just happy to share your incredible writing and art!
I’m nosy, too! I do miss having a peak into people’s lives through social media but not enough to rejoin. But that nosiness is wonderfully fulfilled through blogging where I get a bit more context, typically, to what is going on behind the scenes.
I track my time for a week in January. I do it in excel so I can easily copy/paste things, like my morning routine, and then I use sumif formulas to calculate how I use my team. I track in 30 min increments so it is not nearly as accurate as your manual tracking process, but it gives me a sense for how my time is spent. It’s fun to look at how it has changed year-over-year. The first year I tracked was 2022, so Will had just turned 1 in December. So how I’ve spent my time has really changed – in a good way (less night wakings, for example).
I can always use some light reading so will check out those 2 books!
Lisa, I think I tried to track in 30 minute increments but it didn’t work for me. This was the best way to do it, although boring to constantly write things down. Maybe I’ll try to do it again in a different season. Right now gardening takes up so much time, and so I’ll be interested to see what winter brings.
Hi!
I had a monarch butterfly in my milkweed yesterday. It was thrilling:)
EEEEEEEE! I’m thrilled for you!
I have never done time tracking and I might give it a try. Much like keeping track of finances, keeping track of time can be surprising to see where it goes and how to redirect it to accomplish a particular need/desire. I think I’m on it!
I love your garden, especially your coneflowers. I have a very sad coneflower in my garden that despite all my efforts to encourage it to thrive, it’s just not happening. The black-eyed Susans, however, are as usual glowing in all their yellow beauty!
Despite not blogging myself, I feel a connection with the stories bloggers share. I’m glad you share what you do!
Oh, this is good – I need to do the same! I love blogging and probably spend at least 30 minutes a day on it. I’ll start tracking my time tomorrow.
And yes, I love comments! I love leaving them on other blogs, reading everyone else’s, and of course replying to every single one on mine – even if they come in weeks later. The comment section is the best part for me!
Oooh keep me posted, Catrina! I’d be interested, as you and I have a similar posting schedule (once a week generally?)
The comment sections are so fun!
Pearl is now my friend as well because thanks to your link I found out that MAGGIE SMITH HAS A NEW BOOK!!! Best news ever!
I have never wanted to track my time, and it sounds like it is for the same reasons. I’ve had a full time job for most of my adult life, but I guess I’m a fast worker because I’ve never managed to make the work fill up 40 hours, so an honest time tracker would have captured a few cumulative hours of pretending to look busy while I was daydreaming. Family life is much different/easier with college age kids, and I don’t think that I would have wanted to know how much of my life’s energy went to grocery shopping/cooking/cleaning back when they were younger.
I think that the power of knowing where your time goes is to know that you have choices. Of course you are not going to give up on personal hygiene, cleaning the house, and cooking nourishing food, but if you wanted to do it for one day, then you’d have a rough idea of how much time that would free up.
I’m always checking FB and IG for the same reason as you – it’s my only way to know what’s going on with my non-bloggy friends.
Pearl is great and you are going to LOVE her. I love her! She’s an inspiration to me!
I have so many questions (hi, I am also Very Extremely Nosy, thanks) and some are probably not appropriate for this venue, but a) I loved this post. Also b) what is #4 on your time tracking list? Also also, would you consider sharing MORE of your weekly time tracking? You really do such a great job of getting to all the things you want to do, and I am constantly on the search for a blueprint of how to get to all the things. You make all these nutritious and delicious meals, and I would love to know how long it takes to make them, for instance.
I am blown away by your 40 minutes a day of blog commenting. I feel like I never get to read and comment on as many blogs as I WANT to, and on the rare days when I do, I am in front of my computer for hours. Perhaps you are a super fast reader, which would explain all the voracious reading as well.
Your garden is spectacular, Nicole. So, so beautiful. What a gratifying result of your hard work.
Suzanne, I will answer any question you have anytime! You can always email or text me but you know I’ll answer!!!
Number 4 on the list is cardio/ strength training. That was a Tuesday so I do a combination of elliptical trainer and Peloton, followed by a little strength routine that the guys created for me. “Mom’s not going to get the osteo!” is a thing they say.
I do definitely prioritize blog post reading in that I have some that I will ALWAYS comment on, and some that I will only sometimes comment on. If a person is a frequent poster (more than 3x week) then I don’t feel like I have to comment on every post. And if it’s NaBloPoMo, I just do my best.
I will add up the “meal prep” minutes and let you know. It’s a bit of a foggy area because I make breakfast and lunch for myself and dinner for everyone, I clean up for breakfast and lunch but the guys clean up for dinner, sometimes the prep takes longer…I should just do a whole post on dinner!
I have never tracked my time, but I think it would be much like tracking spending which I have done. You can see, and sometimes be surprised by, where the money goes and decide to redirect if you want to save more and/or purchase a big ticket item. Same with time – do I spend too much time on one activity, could I cut back or streamline on one thing to make more time for something else? I think tracking my time is a good idea. I’m on it!
You have a beautiful garden! I am a little envious of your coneflowers as I have a rather sad one that despite my best efforts just doesn’t want to thrive. My black-eyed Susans, however, are thriving. You win some you lose some.
Although I do not blog myself, I do enjoy reading blogs. I feel a connection to all the shared human experiences that people write about. And of course the book recommendations 🙂 So thank you for sharing your posts!
I don’t know how much I will track my time because it is a tedious process BUT I’m glad I did it! It’s good to see where the time goes! I also feel like it made me really intentional about things like checking notifications, etc.
Thanks so much – I love my garden – and I love black eyed Susans and I don’t have any! I’m sure yours are gorgeous!!
I love sharing my reading with everyone, there are some big wins and some not so great books, and I like to share them all.
Your garden is such a perfect representation of the person you are, and I’m so happy you have it. I have fewer friends or the friends are posting less on Facebook these days, and I do still love checking it but have had to stop myself from scrolling more and ending up rage-reading posts and comments from not-my-friends.
I need to put a reading blogs time in my day. I tend to not read blogs until I am blogging again, and then if I’m not blogging a lot I feel too guilty to keep reading, and it makes my whole blog-related rhythm jerky and difficult.
I thought Shopgirls was Shopgirl by Steve Martin for a minute (read it for book club years ago, really liked it, he is multi-talented). I will put this one on my list because I have a ridiculous love of reading books with the same title or similar titles to others I’ve read.
You know what, it’s funny, maybe that’s why I find it so easy to just check FB 1-2 times a day and only for a few minutes – it seems like there are so few friends posting these days! I find I can catch up easily in a short amount of time.
I am sure I read Shopgirl and I’m sure I liked it!
And THANK YOU. I love my garden so much!
“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” This comment is so simple, yet it’s so profound. It’s very easy to simply drift along, one day to the next, without being mindful of what we’re doing. I’m not saying that we should be out there Every Single Day building low cost housing for the poor or protecting pollinators, but it’s very easy to fritter away precious time with brainless junk.
Alice Walker said, “Look closely at the present you are constructing; it should look like the future you are dreaming.” I take that at its simplest: do things today that make life better tomorrow, either for myself or others. It’s surprising how that basic mantra fits so many situations.
I also share your philosophy about writing blog posts and responding to commenters. Writing is a Huge Deal to me, and when people take time to read and comment, not only am I thrilled and pleased and honoured, I feel it’s a contract of mutual respect.
Oh I absolutely love that quote and I’ve never heard it before. What a perfect summation! Thank you so much Nance!
Writing is also a huge deal for me and I never take my beloved readers for granted! I know you must be the same.
Your posts have been especially good lately. Not that they weren’t before, but lately they’ve been hitting me exactly where I need them. You say things that feel so relatable—things I didn’t know I was allowed to admit to myself. Reading your words makes me feel a little more free.
I also really value the time and care it takes to write, curate, and polish blog posts—and to comment on them too. This past year, I haven’t always engaged with other people’s writing the way I’d like to, for a variety of reasons. But I want to get back to that. Slowing down, taking time. It matters to me. And that’s what matters.
Your garden, Nicole, is so lovely. You can tell how much love and attention you give it. It gives it back to you—you can see it.
And one more thing: I can tell you genuinely care about others. When you comment or like something on Instagram (which is the only place I follow you), it never feels automatic. It feels real.
Thank you for this post today. I appreciate you so much. xoxo
Kari, I feel like we are soul sisters! I am so glad my writing is resonating with you so much lately! xoxoxo
It definitely takes time and effort to write and read blog posts – time and effort well spent, to be sure!
You are so kind and thank you for this lovely comment. I do think you get what you give, and I try!! xoxoxo
Ooh, I dig the circle pattern in the grass, it is very fancy! I’m also incredibly nosy, and nourished by the blogs I read. So many interesting lives, so many interesting women! I started writing my blog because I am nosy and felt like I should give folks a chance to nose around in my goings on, too. I also started because I struggle with writer’s block in my day life, and thought I’d try to jump start the practice with blog posts. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the dullness of my paid writing life sometimes flattens the tone. Hopefully things will loosen up at some point. Have a great week, Nicole!
I don’t think your tone is flat at all! I enjoy your posts very much (especially your dog posts, what a good dog!). I love that we are all into blogging for the nosiness!
I love the garden too – we had it all landscaped last year and it was so worth it!
You know I love blogging and I love behind-the-scenes ANYTHING. So I am here for this post.
I’ve time tracked a handful of times and really enjoy the process…for a week. I have exactly zero desire to time track daily like some people do. But every once in a while (once every year or two, for a week) it’s helpful.
“My days are pleasantly full.” This feels like it should be a Hallmark slogan for the epitome of retirement goals. It’s all about the pleasant part. Pleasantly full days are my absolute favourite.
Elisabeth, yes, you said it. It was helpful to see but wow would I not want to do that regularly. It’s so tedious! And time consuming, which feels like the opposite of the point of time tracking!
It’s so clear that you live your life with intention. I have to say, a few weeks ago I didn’t do my strength training (it was Saturday, my rest day), and I had a very short yoga video, and then I blew off my Saturday protest (because it was hot and no shade where they were holding it, and I’m on medication that makes me sensitive to the sun), and I blew off my morning walk because I don’t have a dog and what the hell reason is there to go sometimes, and OMG, I felt like I had SO MUCH TIME.
One problem that I have with blogging is that so much of the interesting conversation happens in the comments…so I want to read blog posts, and then I want to read what everyone has said, and wow, that takes some time, especially if I’m late to the game and there are 30 or 40 comments (or hundreds if you are Ally Bean!) and I feel like 40 minutes for blogging barely scratches the surface.
Hahaha I can imagine how much time I’d have on my hands as well!
I usually read/ comment early in the morning so there are often very few other comments – I can usually breeze through them quickly. But almost always by the time I get to Ally’s post, she already has 100+ comments! So I don’t read those, I just go to the end to add my two cents. I agree though, the comments can be gold!
I love this post Nicole. Your post is like a warm blanket every time!
how we spend our days is how we spend our life. I will definitely fill it with reading, exercising, walking with my loved ones (I will get a dog when retired), and connection.
I like that you limit yourself to certain amount of time for blog related activities, and okay checking on FB and Insta. I check them almost daily but for few minutes each time and don’t feel them absorbing, but inspiring.
was there anything that surprised you tracking your time?
Awww thank you Coco! You are so sweet. I love being a warm blanket. Sometimes I’m a hot flash blanket!
There weren’t any big surprises when I was time tracking, honestly!
Having done a several day-in-the-life blog posts in which I recorded what I was doing every hour on the hour, that seems like a complicated endeavor. I’m glad you were pleased with the results. That’s wise what you said about our days and our lives.
I read and comment on blogs in the morning, too, though not as early as you do. But I am so in the rhythm of it I came here thinking– it’s Tuesday, the day after Nicole blogs– I should see what she said about my comment from yesterday but I couldn’t find my comment because I was in a hurry to leave for the dentist yesterday morning and didn’t comment on your blog. It’s so routine I just assumed I must have.
Your garden is beautiful.
I love that, Steph!
I find recording what I do to be weirdly time consuming and tedious, but I’m glad to have done it.
I have never successfully got a full week of time tracking, so kudos to you. I must be nosy, too, because I want more details on how much time you spend on everything. I am in a similar situation to you, in that I get to choose how I’m going to fill my day. Do you prefer to spread out things over the week, or go all out on one thing for hours? I always wonder whether it would work better to just set aside most of a day to tackle something or do a little bit each day.
I love your perrenials, they are really doing well. I feel like I’ve never been able to get on top of our garden since it got out of control when we were in Spain last Spring. Maybe I need to put aside a couple of days to seriously tackle it before our Spring rolls around again.
Melissa, I usually do things every day for small chunks of time, rather than just spend hours on one day. It’s more enjoyable for me to spend an hour weeding than have to block off an entire day to do it? I feel that way about most things, including housework. It’s easier for me to do little bits and pieces daily than spend hours cleaning the house – but of course, I have such a flexible schedule that I can do that! But I think you are similarly flexible.
Your Tiger Swallowtail (ROAR) is so lovely, but man, if I were a butterfly? I’d be all over your entire garden—-it is a thing of pure perfection, pure beauty! SWOON!
I love that you took the time to jot down all your ‘time’, that in itself took a little bit of time. I don’t know that I could do it myself, because I’m a ‘willy nilly, let’s do a little this and that all the time’, so it would be such a mess and I don’t want to actually SEE how messy time can be. HAHA. That really doesn’t make sense, and I’m way past coffee. 🤣
I love how wonderful and positive your move has been for you, your husband and sons. All that stress, it was worth it! And again, your gardens have me awestruck.
I’m adding Shopgirls to my reading list!
You have lovely handwriting my friend!
I should have known that you would be able to identify my little butterfly friend! Thank you!
I COMPLETELY understand what you’re saying about time tracking! I had to be super intentional about it, and there were some blocks where I was like “well, I prepped dinner while reading a book and also washed the dishes and answered an email” – close enough! I mostly wanted to know how much time I spent blogging and doing blogging related things.
The move was SO worth the stress!
I did these time tracking weeks for the last 2 or 3 years and for some reason, this year, I just could NOT get my life together to do it. I kept forgetting or getting annoyed that I was forcing myself to do this exercise. I think next time I do it, I just want to track my hobbies and the non-sleeping, non-working time I have. I think it would be interesting to see how much time I really do spend on blogging and reading and TV! Sometimes I get overwhelmed at how much time is spent on blogging, lol. Like, I love doing it but if I go even a few days without opening my laptop, I’m toast.
Stephany, that was the whole reason I did this exercise, to see how much time I spent blogging. It was interesting for sure! Tedious, but interesting. If I do it again it will be in another, non-garden season. Right now it takes up so much time that I can’t remember what I did when I wasn’t gardening!
Even though I seriously have no time for it, I sat down and read the comments on this post because I think all bloggers are secretly nosy. But we’re nosy for the mundane details. What toothpaste do you use? How often do you go to the grocery store? I would have loved it if you had provided a chart of how much time you spent on each thing in your life because I want to know the details.
That being said, I found time tracking to be too stressful for me. I do a lot of drudgery every day and as I was marking that I’d spent 2.5 hours in the kitchen and another hour doing laundry, I just sort of noped out. NOT FOR ME. I am lady who already knows what my one precious life is made of and it’s mostly making salads and vacuuming the floors.
Engie, I knew you would want a chart!!! I love that about you. In the spirit of giving the people what they want: I use Crest Complete with Scope toothpaste, I go to the grocery store (Superstore) once a week, but I add in a Costco trip a couple times a month. This time of year I also swing by the farm market on my way to Superstore.
Your second paragraph is exactly why I haven’t tracked my time in the past. I think I made it to noon on day one of tracking once, and the result was so depressing I abandoned it.
I feel very, very much the same about blogging as part of our lives and building community… how you manage to spend only 40 min/day on posting and reading and responding and be able to keep up with so many people/blogs, is beyond me. Can you teach me your ways? It’s so easy to fall behind for me…
San, I know what you mean. I have to be quite disciplined about it! I usually read blogs first thing in the morning, so I have a set time for it. Because I read so early, I’m usually one of the first commenters, which cuts down on the reading of the comments! But I can generally keep up because, you know, I don’t have a job! It would be harder if I had another schedule to keep to!
Your garden is lovely, Nicole! A true balm!
I felt that same sense of a lack of surprise when I time-tracked as well. I would call myself a hustler or a time-management guru, but tend to contentment and rarely do anything I don’t want to or don’t believe to be important.
I’m curious about the amount of time you spend reading and writing as those are “professional” activities in my mind.
Great question Maya (also, hiiii! glad this went through!) During the period that I was writing my novel, I would block off two hours a day, four days a week. When I did this exercise, I was in edits, and so it was more like ninety minutes. I also spend on average 30 minutes a day on my personal blog – some days more, some days less. That includes replying to comments, and also ideas for posts, as well as photos.
Reading – non-blog, that is – is generally around 2 hours, and much more on weekends. I usually have a one hour chunk that is reading-only, and then I read in snippets throughout the day!
I figured out a hack :)! And I wanted your lovely response recorded for posterity! Especially with today’s news!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love your garden, and your beautiful bush! haha. BUTTERFLY bush! My Mom has one and it is so pretty and it really does attract the butterflies. I love it. I also love roses, and used to love running in my neighborhood during COVID and just checking out everyone’s beautiful gardens! I would be interested in your stats, although if you are fulfilled, that really is all that matters, but I am nosy too! I think if I tracked right now it would be interesting; I find it so easy to get stuck in the black hole of the internet, and so have been trying to get out for a run or walk BEFORE I start reading blogs, because sometimes I look up and it is 9 am and I am still on the computer and I wonder what I am doing with my life. So I still need some routine and some discipline, even from myself! I would be curious to hear how do you stay disciplined?
I have a GORGEOUS bush! Lol!
I do not mind nosiness at all! I’m not going to write a post about the stats but I’d be happy to answer any questions you have! Do you have anything you’d specifically like to know? I know exactly what you mean about the black hole of the internet, and that’s why I put a time limit on myself. I allow myself to read blogs while I have my coffee, but then I stop at a certain time to start my yoga. My morning is yoga-workout-Rex walk. I walk the time back from there and so I know I can’t let myself read longer than 45 minutes in the morning, or everything is too late!
I guess my questions would just be that I wonder what your average day consists of…. obviously each day is a little different, but I always am curious what people fill their time with. Like for me, I would say, “wandering around” would be a high time item, travel planning is usually a lot at one time, but is not every day etc. So I am just curious what your average day has in it (I am guessing right now, garden is high on the list!?)
Yes, it depends on the day for sure. This time of year my garden takes up an average of an hour a day. When I was writing my book I would block off two hours a day for that, and for editing. This month I’m a bit in limbo writing-wise. Blog writing averages out to about 30 minutes a day (clumped though, so one day might be an hour and another nothing). Walking with Rex is 90 minutes, yoga is around 45-60 minutes, exercise (cardio and strength) is about an hour on weekdays. Reading is a couple of hours, making dinner depends on the dinner but about an hour total, household chores maybe 45-60 minutes…you see how it is. It depends on the day for sure – some days I have errands, some I don’t, some days I spend time with friends, some days I don’t…
I love learning the details of how other people spend their time. Your days are so different from mine! And that – right there – is why I read blogs. 🙂 Thank you for sharing the details and, more importantly, your thoughts on them. <3
Aww thank you Anne, for reading!
