hrj

I am a creature of habit. I like to have my life organized so that I do specific things at specific times in specific contexts.

One reason for this is that, when unscheduled, I tend to go all hyper-focus on one particular thing, drag it almost to the finish line, then get interrupted by Life and lose track of next steps. So if I tie each of my desired goals to a daily or weekly context in which that goal is my focus, then all of them get pushed along at a sustainable rate.

Another reason for habit is that it prevents me from losing track of essential tasks, or having to scramble to do them at the last minute (all of which creates anxiety). So, for example, on arriving home in the evening, before I even feed the cats, I do the following:

• Rinse the travel mug and set up the coffee maker for the morning
• Unpack the gym bag, hang the multi-use garments up to air/dry, replace the single-use garments
• Set out my work clothes for the next day
• Plug in any rechargeable devices used on a daily basis (may include iPad, earbuds, USB battery stick - the iPhone doesn't get plugged in until I go to bed)
• Collect any breakfast/lunch items I'll be taking to work the next day
• (Next is feeding the cats, but they are much less likely to get overlooked, being sentient wanting beings)

The larger daily/weekly schedule gets shifted periodically, much like I sometimes rearrange the furniture just so I can experience living in a different world. But there are certain practical constraints that shape both efficiency and possibility. For example, if I drive to work, then the time when I'm on the road drastically affects how long the commute takes. Also only certain secondary activities are possible while driving. If I take BART to work, different secondary activities are possible while on the train, but I am constrained in possible side-trips on the work end, as well as constrained in what secondary objects I can carry with me. This can be modified by whether I use a bicycle in conjunction with BART, but conversely having a bicycle with me affects certain schedule logistics (crowded trains, daylight hours).

For the last year, my daily routine had become ill-fitting due to one major shift. I could take BART and have more free time at the edges of my day if I did my gym workout on my lunch hour at the gym near work. Or I could drive and have almost no free time at the edges of my day because I needed to get on the road before traffic and then would do my gym workout after work to wait out rush hour. A big down side of the latter is that I'm driving a lot (down side for ecological reasons, since the expense is actually close to identical). The major shift? I can no longer reliably schedule a workout at lunch due to meeting density. But the thing keeping me from making major adjustments was a year-long gym membership at a specific location (near my workplace). To get my workout, I either needed to do it at lunch or after work, and after work didn't work (because: reasons) if I was taking BART.

So... my gym contract was up in October and I decided to take the plunge and change to a gym in Concord (and also one that's on my workplace's benefits plan, so the expense is massively reduced). I could routinely take BART again. Now all I had to do was find new arrangements for the building blocks of all my scheduled secondary activities.

Old Schedule

• Morning at home: non-existent
• Morning drive: either listen to podcasts or dictate fiction (if actively writing)
• Morning coffee shop hour: write -- either blog, LHMP, or fiction
• Lunch break: read for LHMP and draft blog notes
• After work: gym workout & read fiction
• Evening drive: listen to podcasts
• Evening at home: catch up on email and internet (I read email and social media on my phone during the day, but can't do any substantial posts/responses that way)
• Weekends: write up LHMP, podcast scripts, record and edit podcasts, catch up on correspondence that requires brainpower, work on fiction

New Schedule - which is partly what I'm settling into and partly aspirational

• Morning at home: wow, I actually have one! Mostly because I keep waking up on my prior schedule, but I'm thinking of making it work for me. Eat breakfast at home (rather than at my desk at work). Do the writing that was previously the coffee-shop tasks. (Though at the moment it's mostly correspondence for book promotion and podcast stuff.)
• Morning BART: read/annotate on iPad for LHMP (can't juggle a physical book and post-its, though)
• Walk from BART shuttle to work (I've chosen a path that includes a 15 minute walk): listen to podcasts
• No morning coffee shop
• Lunch break: currently filled with LHMP because my immediate to-dos are physical books
• Walk from work to BART shuttle: listen to podcasts
• Evening BART: read fiction
• Gym: listen to podcasts/read fiction
• Evening at home: write up LHMP, do correspondence that requires brainpower
• Weekends: podcast scripts, record and edit podcasts, work on fiction

In theory, everything's just been rearranged, but the dust hasn't settled yet. Eventually I need to work on fiction in the morning-at-home session because that's when I tend to be most productive--when I make it work for me. And I'm still struggling with the brainpower to do serious correspondence in the evening. But I'm rather enjoying having actual breakfast at home on work days.

Oh, and Mondays are special because Mondays are dragon boat practice after work, but this means that since I have to drive for that, Mondays can also be "take the week's lunches in to work" and "do the week's grocery shopping after practice" day. It was trickier back when I went to the Tuesday practice, but I changed over earlier this year because Tuesdays were so lightly attended that a) I ended up steering far more often than I got to paddle, and b) entirely too often there weren't enough people to go out at all.

I hope you've been entertained by this window into the arrangement of my life furniture.