Where does my time go: Follow-up

Baby A says it's important to be open to change

It took me a little longer to respond to this than I was hoping which, once again, is analogous to responding to manuscript decision letters (well, for everyone except one colleague I know who shall remain nameless...). I had a couple of questions from friends and family that I thought I would mention here--this blog garnered almost as many texts and emails as the one on postpartum anxiety. First, just to clarify, I'm not trying to micromanage every moment of my life. For me, personally, knowing where my time is going is really helpful. I feel like I'm putting in a little time on the front end (by tracking, blogging, etc.) that I gain, in more meaningful moments in the future. The second clarification relates to Dr Psych Mom's post more specifically. I know a few people were concerned because they felt like Samantha was overly harsh (on both of us but especially on Chad). While I agree she didn't pull any punches and there were certain aspects that were written more for a general audience, Samantha is a friend who knows us both really well and she offered lots of great suggestions. Not all of them will work for our family and many are ones we have tried/been using but hopefully those will help other people who follow her blog. The ones that will work for us should be awesome. So here are my thoughts (I decided against a manuscript-style cover letter; no one wants to read that). 

Suggestions we are excited to try

• Neither Chad nor I can recall a time since A was born that I wasn't working after she went to bed. I am going to try to only work 4 nights per week, total. This is actually even less than Samantha suggested. I will aim for going to bed by midnight. It is really hard for me to imagine going to bed at 10:30pm. I do need less sleep than average but my current amount is too little. But I will give it two weeks to see if it's possible. If not, maybe I will use the 90 minutes to pleasure read or something. 
• Speaking of bed times, Samantha's suggestions for A were spot on. We have been fairly flexible with it (usually we start the routine between 8:45-9) but have been discussing ways to get it pushed back (including revising meals, see below). Her natural wake time has always been after 7 am and I'm not really hoping that changes much...
• It felt important to note/clarify/correct, I do (attempt to) feed A between 6:30-7. Maybe she will be more likely to eat if I am eating at the same time, though. I have been feeling very guilty about Chad having to heat up his meal/eat (alone) after A is in bed but this is a solution we have discussed previously. Chad was all for it but the guilt prevented me from moving on it.
• Meal plan on Wednesday for Chad to grocery shop on Thursdays.
• Exercise was one of my big goals and has been something I feel unmotivated to change but passionate with knowledge that it needs to. I laughed when I read Samantha's suggestions because, in fact, I did download the C25K app and left my house at the exact moment she suggested. More recently, I purchased a cheap treadmill. Importantly, I have used the app and the treadmill exactly once each. So clearly I know what I am supposed to do...I think the earlier bedtime should help with that.
• We liked the suggestion of not feeling like I need to take off every Friday. 
• I have an amazing list of babysitters that I generated when I needed back-up care for days A couldn't go to school. I am not opposed to using sitters generally but I think I have fallen into the mommy martyrdom of not using sitters for fun things. A lot of why I don't hire sitters is because I know how many hours A is in daycare.  I will contact sitters in order to go to a work dinner or lab writing retreat but heaven forbid I get one for date night. Yes, I hear it. Ridiculous. Chad is very excited about getting a sitter for dinner and a movie soon. 
• Samantha focused a lot on Chad's Thursdays. He will admit that he does like having that off as a day to himself. However, he does cleaning and vacuuming on Fridays, runs all of our errands and handles all of the car maintenance on his second day off (car maintenance is a huge annoyance given that he drives 600 miles per week). He is going to start doing more on Thursdays though, including going to the grocery store and more general cleaning.
• Using A as a motivator for healthy balance. I spend a lot of time lecturing students about work/life balance and self-care with the full disclosure that I haven't found that yet (as they are aware since they are the ones receiving emails from me at 2am). I loved this reminder: You want to be a healthy role model, who works out, has romantic time with her spouse, has a social life, because I am sure you want A to have all these things in her own life as an adult.  She is soaking in everything you do, and if you’re either focused on her or work, she doesn’t understand that there is more to a healthy life than those two things.  What you tell her to do or what you do for her (e.g., I am sure you give her lots of running around time although you don’t exercise yourself) doesn’t matter nearly as much as what she sees you do. 

I mentioned that there were a number of things we were already doing. These include:

• Amazon Prime. People may have been accusing Samantha of not knowing me well solely because of this recommendation. Our mail carrier has a well-worn path to our front door. Potentially we could be using this more effectively for pantry items, however. 
• Crockpot meals. We are pretty obsessed with our crockpot. I cook 5 nights per week and plan for a crockpot meal on Sundays and Tuesdays. We also freeze a lot of leftovers and I include those as part of our meal plan.  
• I don't drink caffeine. I stopped drinking caffeine in graduate school (interesting life choice, I know) and had picked it back up a bit more recently. However, I am now overly sensitive to it and do not drink it at all.
• We do serve A dinner by 7.
• I am also pretty anti-helicopter parent. We are fortunate that A plays independently a lot--what needs to change is what I do when she is playing (social media). 
• We sleep trained A when it became an issue about 7 months ago. She has "quiet time" in her crib on weekends when she doesn't nap. We follow the same routine for naps as bed time but she doesn't always (/usually) sleep. However, she stays in her crib for at least 1 hour.
• No games on my phone. The real test would be getting rid of the Facebook app...

There were a few things that we are less sure of or know may work awesome for others but probably won't work well for our family/situation. 

• I do micromanage a bit. However, most of the supervision of students on my calendar was meetings with students who I am supervising their clinical work. I've attempted to make meetings shorter or combined when possible but I am required to provide weekly individual supervision for their clinical cases. My research students do request individual weekly meetings but it is possible that could be streamlined/cut back a bit. 
• I think Samantha forgot that we live in the land that Target forgot so clearly we don't have such fancy options as Peapod (seriously though, so jealous of those who can use this service; clearly any blog on time management should include this awesome suggestion). I tried to see if our local grocery store offered delivery because I thought I had heard they did. If anyone would like to look into this for me, I'd love to know. If anyone does it, it would be Consumers.
• I am willing to try it but the idea of working out while A is awake is questionable to me. But we may surprise ourselves.
• I can guarantee that I will never share a diet log with you, Samantha. I rarely feel exhausted but sugar is a problem...

So that was my long response. I feel good about changes we will make and that this was a really useful exercise. I imagine Samantha would love to look at your schedules too if you're really willing to take a good look at how you're using your time!