Could you use a few more hours (days!) in your weekend?
September 29, 2008
I wouldn’t be opposed, myself.
Saturday was packed, and yet felt like I didn’t get much done. Friend and I finally tackled the nagging car problems and mid-way through diagnosing the window issue, the car battery died. Excellent timing. $80 later for a new battery, and $8 for Mcdonald’s as payment for the labor, my car was ready to run again, and we’re ready to research and order new parts. Our best guess, since we’re clearly not mechanics, is that since it’s not an electrical problem, and the fuses are ok, it might be the window regulator.
We’ll use his mechanic as a resource to price the part and the estimated (recommended) labor. That’ll be compared to the warrantied used-car-parts place that Friend uses as well. We’ll decide what to do (go with a new part, and personal labor, a used part and personal labor, or either part and mechanic labor) when we’ve got all the angles covered. Bonus: It’s amazingly refreshing to know that the cost is covered by my auto maintenance fund.
Working on the car took four hours. I was pretty beat, so instead of getting right to work when I got home, I talked in the phone for an hour. Lunch with the friends at a new sushi restaurant ate up another 2 hours, and food coma quickly took care of the next hour and half. I’ve been making my way through Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things (a birthday gift) and fell asleep somewhere between a short story or poem.
The pressing need to do laundry, work, cleaning, organizing, more online research and submissions of things, blog posts, etc. fueled a bit of guilt, but honestly, I needed the time to become human again after a long week of work.
Becoming more human included having a spot of dinner with friends, and watching Run, FatBoy Run that night. I like Simon Pegg, and the movie was amusing, but it didn’t have the unpredictable plot or twisted humor I’ve come to expect from him. It was a bit disappointingly predictable, really. And I know, it wasn’t his movie, so I can’t really blame him. Happily, I continued to honor my strike against Blockbuster and their ridiculous prices by renting from the local independent video store. They charge $1.79 per movie, per day. Since I rarely watch movies, and don’t have any need to keep the DVD for more than the day it takes to watch, I love this kind of rental. Actually, it’s an ingrained preference since I grew up renting from an independent store for a dollar a day, per video. None of this chain, $5/five days for a single movie nonsense for me! $4, two movies, one go. Good stuff!
Sunday was even more jam-packed: started working as soon as I got up, did laundry, met up with a friend to lend a sympathetic ear, took loads of recycling to the center, and tried to compose some general letters. Also, watched the second movie, dodged a possible birthday party out in the city because I couldn’t stomach the idea of another sushi meal so soon after the last, and and and …!
I think, perhaps, the better idea than to try to squeeze more hours or days out of the weekend, better time and task management is in order. It’s not that I find any of the above tasks distasteful, so it’s more a matter of proper distribution throughout the week so that I’m not cramming a thousand and one tasks into each day, and wonder why I’m so tired on Monday. Something like SavingDiva’s cleaning schedule. While saving up all the tasks makes it seem like everything gets done in a single go, the truth is, they’re all just waiting until the end of the week, and if we’re lucky, most of it’s completed.
Taking into consideration I don’t get home before 8 pm most nights, there are still ways to incorporate micro-versions of some of these chores into each night.
1. Laundry always takes about an hour and a half per load, so that’ll remain a weekend chore.
2. Letting mail pile up, though, has recently become a bad habit. I’ll open and read the mail, but won’t file it for a couple of days. That needs to stop. I’ll discard (appropriately) as I go, daily.
3. Cleaning: I will pick up after myself as I go, each day. Jackets get hung up, laundry goes into the basket or hung up again (jeans) each night. No more letting it pile up so I can “decide” later.
4. Letters/correspondence/career related writing: Pick one item, just one, and focus on it every other day.
There never does seem to be enough time, does there.
As far as cleaning goes, I’m a big fan of FlyLady (http://www.flylady.net/). Her site is geared toward stay at home parents, but I find that a lot of her suggestions work wonders!
paranoidasteroid: There really isn’t. And oddly, lately, the more I remind myself of chores that need doing, the less I do them. Very weird.
I’ve heard of the FlyLady and her 15 mins per go, if this laziness keeps up, I might need her help!