Too many hours

30-09-12

Jack and Helen went off on an over night mother and son excursion this weekend. I'd been looking forward to having time to myself, I'd got a lot of work to wrap up before I shift my focus exclusively to my studies. So the moment the plans were official I meticulously scheduled all sorts of things I could get done and hopefully even left some time for a movie.

Saturday came and at 3pm I hugged them and waved them off. The house went quiet, so after a few minutes relaxing and getting used to the stillness I set too with my schedule. I had a lot too do, three apps to finish up and submit and quite a bit of preliminary research to do for uni. I'd planned on it taking most the night so in order to leave myself some movie time I opted to start with the smaller thing and walk the dogs.

An hour later I sat down and got to work. I started with the uni stuff.
5:00 and I could do no more. I'd built up a lengthy reading list and got to a point where I was going to need lecturer input. Excellent didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. I hopped up and made myself some dinner and took care of some housework.
6:15 I finished my dinner and sat back down in front of my computer... Here we go... I hacked away at the computer in a programming trance and pounded through the apps. As I submitted the last of the work I sat back and looked at the clock. 7:00...
So now what? It's just gone Jack's bed time and I'd finished everything. 4 hours ahead of schedule.

Never in my life have I had such a hard time filling the time. I hadn't decided on what movie I would watch because I wasn't sure I'd have the time. I had such a hard time finding one to watch that I gave up twice, only to resume the search after 10 minutes of not being able to find anything else to do. I tried to play some WoW but with it being a very busy time for the game there was a queue well over an hour long. Of course now I can think of a list of things I could have done, but you know how it it, the bored have a hard time getting un-bored. It was a long night.

Children take so much more time than you realise, they take all your attention and sap all your strength. Normally with Jack in the house my night doesn't start until 7pm at the earliest, and that's if everything goes smoothly. At which point it's a race to get everything done with what energy you have left. By the time you start your focus is already waning. I sometimes try to get work done with him around but I'm slowed to such a pace that I might not as well not even bother. Even when it's just Helen and I at the end of the night I struggle to concentrate if I have some work to do, we talk and watch TV and it really slows the progress.

So it turns out that in a quiet setting I can get work done at a phenomenal pace. Maybe this is something I should arrange closer to the end of term.