Key to time management lies in making agenda lists
Today’s column is being written on my laptop as I sit in the front seat of my car waiting for my 9-year-old daughter to complete her first day of school. I’ve got the mouse up on the console and the computer tilted on one knee over the steering wheel.
Laugh if you must, but this is how I juggle most of my life. The to-do list is three pages long this week. I still need to buy my books. My financial aid finally came in to pay for my classes, but I haven’t received my reimbursement yet. This means no books for me quite yet. Homework was due this morning and fortunately it didn’t require reading a chapter.
I sometimes wonder if I have gone absolutely insane thinking I can juggle it all. The kids, the house, my business, my new book and my education—what a crazy idiot am I? And yet, this is par for my life. I don’t seem to feel complete if I don’t have 151 irons in the fire. Well, maybe only 150.
So what does my week look like? Work project needs to be out the door by Thursday. I have classes on Tuesday and Thursday, but I already missed Tuesday’s class. Papers are due on Wednesday night, which I think I can get done. There’s a football game for my son on Friday night, and trip to Portland on Saturday for my son’s exhibition game. I invited family to that one so I can kill two birds with one stone and don’t have to run across town to see them. There’s swim team practices at least four nights this week for my daughter, an ice cream social at the parish center, a budget meeting for the organization I volunteer with and to top it off our dog is due to deliver puppies at any time. She’ll probably have them on Saturday while we are out of town, of course, in the backseat of the car.
I want you to understand that I’m not complaining. This is just my life. On top of the craziness there is still grocery shopping, house cleaning, mowing the lawn and all the other mundane tasks associated with running a household.
How do I think I can do it? Lists, lists and more lists. They need to teach a class in college about making lists. According to a “South Park” episode it’s just something little girls do, but there really is an art to it. Colored pens are essential. Do you sparkle with that? Sunshine!
Despite my crazy agenda, I’m really excited to be in school again. It’s that time I get to be someone other than “mom.” Being a mom is great, but sometimes it’s fun to be something else, just for a while.
The idea that I can soak up knowledge for no other reason than because I want to is very liberating. I study new information for work all the time, upgrade my technological skills to keep pace with my peers, organize people and analyze data, but that’s all what I do, not who I am. The graduate program at UNR has presented me with the opportunity to meld what I do with who I am. What could be better than that?
So, if I can keep the lists coming, keep the kids focused and prevent the dog from getting pregnant again, I’ve basically got it made.
And I did manage to work on my tan this week. Yes, life is good.
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September 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Something about your posts here does not ring true to me….
You had a post on your website about ‘Bellevue’ schools being on strike and your son not being able to attend? But in a previous post here you were in Seattle only on a college recruiting trip…
You are in graduate school in Nevada and your daughter and son attend grade school and high school somewhere in Seattle?
It’s one thing to proffer advice to build up your own credibility. It’s another when the source is suspect (to say the least)…
‘Warning to all who read’ - buyer beware!
September 9th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Did it occur to you Capsule that I might also juggle two households. Apparently not!
September 9th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Capsule please reread the first page of the website. It specifically states that we reside in both places. Some of us are capable of carrying things off at this level. It’s tough, but we do what we must. Maybe it’s when something is that important to us that we care enough to suspend geographic location to achieve it.
September 10th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Payton -
It’s not that. Living in two households in certainly possible… But one as a full time student in Reno and one in Seattle? Why? I understand the Reno part, you are in school there. But are the schools in Bellevue that much better than the schools in Nevada?
A ‘free’ seminar on parenting at ‘Starbucks’? Does Starbucks just let you hang out and teach ‘classes’ there now? In Madison Park? I Googled Madison Park, it is not very close to Bellevue…
You say that you are so busy, that you have to ‘juggle’ so much. Yet you seem to me to be more ‘hiding’ than ‘juggling’… There are only a few reasons that people go to this much trouble to be in two places at once - one of those reasons is usually not that they “care about something so much”.
Sorry - It’s not that I don’t like what you are saying, I could drink it up. But I always remember what my grandmother used to tell me, “when the source is sour so is the water.”
September 11th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Capsule, I don’t owe you a play by play of my day or the geographic difference in getting around town in Seattle or anywhere else. This post is about my experiences. You are welcome not to read it. I think you could find something better to do with your time then spend time.
If you are in Seattle next Monday night. You are welcome to join us at Starbucks.
The choice is yours.
September 11th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt.
Not even Capsule’s Grandmother.
September 11th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Anne -
You are right, you owe me no explanation. The reason for my post is to draw attention to the small inconsistencies in your stories as posted here an elsewhere.
You are attempting to classify yourself as somebody with a point of view that should be considered valuable and informed. You are dispensing advice to others on the basis that you have the moral standing to request this audience.
My point is simple - consider the source.
If you want to maintain the credibility that you are attempting to establish here then I would say that the ‘variations’ in your stories as published by you on the web should be ‘explained’ to your audience. Perhaps you would rather that these things don’t come to light, I could certainly understand that.
3longdays.com That seems to be something different…
publisher, mother, consultant, student… and your ‘financial aid’ finally came through…
One more ‘question’… When you are in Reno M-F for your ‘graduate studies’ and ‘blogging’ - who is watching your 9 year old daughter and shuttling her off to (what was it.. swimming, ballet, soccer..). You did say ‘divorced mother of 2′, right?
Just another in a long line of things that ‘kind of don’t ring true’ to the picture of yourself that you paint here for your audience’..
Best of luck