Yesterday began, not as a typical day, but as an inauspicious one.
Then little by little things started to go wrong. Stupid things at first. A meeting not going as smoothly as I’d hoped. A coding error that refused to be tracked down.
Then I heard some bad news about a friend, and some bad news about another friend.
Then one of my kids got sick. He’s ok now, but it was a long, rough night.
Today I’m tired. Today that coding bug is still annoying me. But today is better.
What happens when your creative job starts feeling more job and less creative?
I’m checking out thismoment which lets you create digital scrapbooks then share them online. Pretty cool I think!
My husband was given tickets to attend the US Open by a colleague. I’m not a golf fan, I don’t play and I only occasionally watch. I appreciate the sport, it’s just not my thing. But a day at a major event with my husband sounded like fun, so I happily went out to Bethpage Black yesterday morning.
The rain has been the big story, but it was sunny and warm as we made our way through the muddy trails to finally find a spot to stand at the 14th hole, where we watched, and waited, and watched, and waited. Finally Tiger came through, and we, along with at least 2/3 of the people around us, moved along. The rains were starting to return, so we just came home. Based on what I saw on tv later (rain rain rain, and lots of beer-soaked “fans”) I’m glad we did, but it was a been there, done that thing for me. Fortunately for Pat, who actually enjoys watching golf, he also had a couple tickets for today, so he and our oldest headed back out there for hopefully more golf (rain rain rain.)
There are rules when you attend a major golf event. No cameras, no cellphones. And they check. I think they hired off-duty TSA employees to handle security. So I had to leave my iPhone behind, and while I understand the reasons, I really missed having it with me. I’m so used to tossing off tweets and grabbing photos on the go that as we walked around I kept thinking what a great photo this or that would make. Not of the players so much, but the people were a great side-show. Especially the shoes. I saw the cutest rain boots on some of the women. Knee high flowery boots, and little clear booties with funky designs. Of course there were mostly sneakers and the occasional flipflop (I’m pretty sure that was a regrettable choice.)
As we were leaving and the rain was starting to come down rest of the rain gear began to come out. Gone are the days of clear or yellow ponchos and black or red & white striped umbrellas. The sidelines grew more colorful as the sky grew more gray. Would have loved to take some shots!
Like I said, I get the reasons for no cells or cameras. I imagine a sideline full of idiots not turning off their flashes, or even worse grabbing calls loudly as a player tees off would ruin golf for both the players and the fans. It’s just too bad such a great photo opp exists only in my head.
I’ve been paying very close attention to they way I work best. The time of day I get the most done is the morning. By around 2pm my brain is done, and sadly it doesn’t matter if I got started around 7am or 11am. I generally get a little spurt of energy in the early evening but that’s right about the time I get hounded with “What’s for dinner? When are we eating?”
So I’ve been trying to get to my desk as early as possible each day. I’ve tried a couple times to actually get out of bed earlier (typically I’m up by 7:30am on days I don’t need to wrassle a kid onto a bus) but the old night-owl in me can’t get the hang of an earlier bedtime and I need my beauty rest. The days I get going by 8am seem to be the most productive, so that’s what I’m shooting for.
For awhile I tried to schedule my days, work time, play time, learning time, family time. This does NOT work for me. On the days where I just let myself wander from task to task I seem to end up with more done. Take today, for example. I was at my computer by 7:30 or so. I read through and responded where necessary to the few emails that arrived overnight (because I was working late last night there weren’t many) and did a couple little coding bits for clients. I hopped on Facebook where I saw I was tagged in a photo from this past weekend, so I decided to go through my own photos and upload the ones I want to share. Meanwhile I have Twitter running so I’ve been chatting on and off with people there. Oh, and I just quickly scanned a training video which I’ll watch more in depth later.
Also I folded some laundry I washed yesterday.
Three hours later I’m writing a post to my blog, something I haven’t done often enough recently. When I’m done I’ll jump in the shower and head off to run some errands, knowing that I’m on top of what I need to be on top of. I’ll hop back on later this afternoon and take care of anything that’s cropped up. Now, today is little different because I’m in a holding pattern waiting for feedback from a lot of people, so I didn’t have any big blocks of work to do (that could change by this afternoon) but even when I do have a lot to do, doing it in spurts, following the shiny every once in awhile, then going back to work, seems to suit me best.
So I’m figuring out what works for me. Of course, I have the lovely freedom to schedule myself. I’ve always chafed at having to work within someone else’s time frame, but I hadn’t realized that it was the time frame itself, vs the someone else, that was getting in the way. Now that I understand, it’s actually easier for me to work with other people. Bonus!
