DITL: Friday + Takeaways

The final day of my time diary, and some takeaways from this project (scroll on down if you want to skip the blow-by-blow).

5:30 Woken by alarm. Lounge in bed.

5:55 Get up and dressed (sweatshirt and slinky-dressed).

6:05 Make challah dough.

6:40 Scrolling and NYT games (my patience for these is wearing thin, though?).

7:05 Davening.

7:45 Breakfast, some scrolling.

8:15 Braid challah.

8:50 Log onto work for meeting at 9:00.

10:00 Add egg wash and sesame seeds and put challah in the oven, then back to my computer. Read from Flourish between waiting for calls and doing other admin work. Take challah out of oven, allow to cool, bundle up most for my friend and one loaf for my parents.

1:00 Lunch. Bake chicken nuggets. Read.

2:00 Clients.

4:00 Wrapping up the week with lots of admin stuff.

5:00 Log off work and journal.

5:15 Get ready for Shabbos.

6:30 Walk over to my parents for Shabbos.

Here ends my time log.

 

Takeaways and observations

I went to bed earlier (much earlier, like by several hours), got up earlier, scrolled less, and davened more (this is huge) when I was tracking my time. It could be it’s because I’m reporting it to you, but it could also be simply because I paid attention.

It’s hard to document multitasking so I did much less of that, too.

Though it felt a bit tedious and repetitive to track all the time I prepared class, planned my trip, and watched the training, it is helpful to see how much time these projects actually take.

I have a hard time getting the day started early in the morning because I’m not sure how to use that time. A part of me thinks that I should add something “good for me” like meditation or a workout and another part doesn’t want to feel obligated to use every minute productively. Maybe I can tell myself that before a certain time in the morning, I don’t have to do anything specific, I just can’t be scrolling on my phone.

I don’t work out, ever. I know we’re supposed to do cardio and strength training but I’m really not interested. What now?

This time-tracking exercise kept me very focused; even when I wasn’t productive, that space-out time felt much more intentional than usual.

Though this week wasn’t representative (much lighter schedule than normal; maybe I’ll do this again in the fall), it was certainly educational!