Day 35 - Time keeps on slippin' (part one)

[Editor's Note - Apologies in advance for a delayed update.  I'm sure a lot of people were waiting with baited breath to gleam pearls of wisdom this blog.  To thee, I beseech your forgiveness.   Now on with the blog.]

"Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future" - Steve Miller Band

“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”- William Blake


What I've noticed lately is that time is no longer my task masker.  I am no longer bound to the tyranny of the urgent in getting things done as soon as possible.  At Intel, I had to attend meetings on a daily basis, provide weekly deliverables and make progress on longer-term tasks.   Now there isn't such urgency.  Deadlines are few and far between (e.g. feed dog within two hour window in morning and evening,  take garbage cans out Wednesday night, pay bills once a month).   As a result, it's easy to fall into the trap of having one day roll into another and losing track of what day of the week it is.   What I struggle with is balancing relaxing and out enjoying the moment versus getting things done.   To address that, I have developed daily guidelines...

* When I wake up in the morning - get up!   It's so easy to wake up, see it's a bit earlier than you want it to be and roll over and sleep for at least another couple of hours.  I try to wake up around 6am but if I wake up a bit before, I just get up.   I find it better to get up earlier than waking up later feeling groggy and annoyed for sleeping away the morning.   And the reason the morning is so important...

* Do mental activities in the morning.  I find myself the most alert in the morning.  So with a cup of coffee I do something that uses my brain.  I could be studying for my computer science class, reading a book/newspaper or writing the occasional blog.  [Editor's note - I am considering starting a more management focused blog on LinkedIn.  I'll be talking about LinkedIn more in a future blog entry]

* After lunch, my brain gets a bit foggy so I work on things that don't require as much grey matter.  I  do things around the house and other routine activities.  Once my alertness has picked up again, I resume cognitive tasks.

* After dinner, relax.  Yeah, it's tempting to say that I'm not working - I'm relaxed all day.  That may be true to a certain extent but I want to spend my evenings on activities that will end by 10pm so I can go to bed at a reasonable hour.  If I start on a problem set for class or pull up a computer game, I can easily lose myself in the activity and wind up going to bed at a very late hour.  Given that "there's always tomorrow" in my life, I don't have to cram everything into one day.  So I usually watch a show or movie - No binge watching for me - before heading to bed.

So how do I pick what to do on a daily basis?  Well, that would be the subject for my next entry which I hope I will write sooner than later.  And of course I'll write in the morning.

Let me know your thoughts.

Eric