Work Plan for 3rd Quarter, 2006

We talked about what I want to do during the next three months (2 1/2 actually, since we’re already midway through June), so now it’s time to figure out how to do all that stuff, or at least part of it.

I’ve spent a lot of time the last several days in the glider nursing Sam. She’s feeding pretty well now, going for 20 minutes or more at a time. That means plenty of time for me to sit with my handy laptop and do some work. Of course, Sam isn’t my only child. I’ve also got Cassie, and she’s not going to keep keep still and be quiet every time I sit down to nurse Sam, so I’m going to have to be able to work while entertaining her as well. And I’ve still got to do the housework, the gardening, errands and cooking, and let’s not forget dedicated playtime with both children because they certainly need it. So my work plan needs to be loose and flexible to accomodate everything else going on in my life.

When I started doing the Fly Lady thing, I got into the habit of breaking my day into three routines - morning, afternoon, and evening. The morning routine was dedicated to basic household chores. The evening routine was dedicated to preparing for bed and getting up the next morning. The afternoon routine was dedicated to my work, playing with Cassie, exercise and any outings we had scheduled to do. I can still use the morning and evening routines, although I have to allow for stopping to nurse as Sam needs it. It’s the afternoon routine that needs to change. That’s the bulk of the day for me, and I’m doing a lot of nursing during that time.

The best option I can think of is to change the afternoon routine to a feeding routine. In other words, work gets done while I nurse and I’m at the laptop. When I’m not nursing, then I play with Cassie or we do yard work and other chores. Seems simple, right? I just have to schedule what happens during the feedings. The first feeding of the day gets devoted to this blog entry, for instance. The next goes to handling e-mail. The one after that to doing graphics work, and after that to writing a critique for my writer’s group. Then we start the whole cycle all over again, except for the blog entry since that only needs to be done once a day. All these tasks are what I consider “interruptible” tasks, meaning Cassie can come chat with me or ask for stories, etc., while I’m working on them. The “uninterruptible” work, i.e. drawing and writing, is still going to be done during Cassie’s nap time. I can write while I nurse. I cannot write while trying to answer the never-ending questions of a three-year old.

In between feedings, my time goes to Cassie, Sam, and the house. In the evenings I throw Michael into that mix too. If this all sounds crazy, like I’m trying to shove too much to do in a very cramped period of time, consider this. We all have more to do than we have time to do it in. Everybody has a list as long as their arm of things they need to accomplish each day and nobody every really finishes that list. I’m just someone who knows that by having a plan, I have a much better chance of accomplishing at least some of the things on my list, which is a lot better than doing none of the things on my list.

Anyway, feeding time is over. My schedule says it’s time for me to move on.