As I wrap up another week, I still can’t believe how busy I am now that I’m not working. I’m not saying that I didn’t do a lot of things during the workday when I was working but there’s a certain tunnel vision that is necessary in a job with specific tasks that need to be done. Now that I have freedom to explore, I feel like I’m jamming a lot more into the same hours.
The good news is, I’m enjoying the hours much more than I did when I was working. I am not longer so exhausted at the end of the work day that I don’t feel like I even have the energy to choose to do something after work. In fact, I’ve been keeping a fairly regular “work day” hours and have my office set up so that there are no distractions to keep me from my work. I can’t believe how quickly the days go and how many times it’s my stomach that tells me I need to stop working for the day.
If not for my Apple watch, the concept of time would disappear for me. Luckily, at 10 minutes to the hour, the buzzing on my wrist tells me I need to stand up. (If you don’t have an Apple Watch, it tries to help you combat being sedentary by ensuring you stand up and move around for at least one minute every hour.)
It would be nice if I could tell you that the buzzing always brings me to my feet but more often than not, I decide I’m just going to finish what I’m working on and then I’ll stand up. When my wrist buzzes again in what only seems like 10 minutes later but is really an hour, I realize I’ve missed standing up for another hour. Generally on this one, I try to get up and stay up and active until it register a stand for that hour and the next giving me a bit of reprieve from the distractions.
But that’s not really what I was planning to write about today.
It’s Friday and this Friday marks four weeks of my freedom from work. Four weeks that I’ve been in complete control over what I want to do and when I want to do it. (As much as I every have control over getting myself to do things.)
It’s giving me pause to stop and reflect on the month and where I want to go from here. I specifically told myself that July was just about exploration and I didn’t need to DO or COMMIT to anything until I gave myself the month to decompress from working and explore what I want to do.
It’s been a crazy (and busy) four weeks. I’ve done more learning than I have in a long time and pursued things for interest sake and not had to stop when I had enough information to complete the task in front of me. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the freedom and energy to just explore ideas and I realize how much I’ve missed it.
This week along, I have:
- Participated in a daily call on a short story writing topic as part of the Short Story Festival created by MIa Botha of Deadlines for Writers and learned a lot about writing short stories.
- Completed countless hours of LinkedIn learning (FREE with my library card) on topics ranging from some great communication courses by T.J. Guttormsen (check him out, his courses are fabulous), WordPress (yes, to build out the rest of my site and another site I’m working on for a non-profit), creating Infographics, and Coreldraw. (And I generally listen to them at 2x speed so I can stay focused so it’s actually twice as much learning in half as much time.)
- I’ve been doing daily writing course s- Suzy Vadori’s Wicked Good Fiction Bootcamp (remember the program I won earlier this month) and some 10 day email ones from Reedsy (again, with so much amazing free content).
- Been using pomodoros to get some writing done (if you don’t know what those are, check this out, it’s my hack for getting things done) and wrote for at least an hour each day.
- Attended a webinar on Workplace Strategies for ADHD (if you’re looking for a great ADHD resource, check out ADDitude)
- Did the paperwork to set up my business.
- Looked into Scrivenir, a tool for writers, and the BC Writer’s Federation.
- And of course, wrote some blogs.
I did all of this while maintaining my wellness routines which now include a daily 5 km walk, creating all of my meals from scratch and a daily mindfulness practice. I’ve been managing health issues over the last year and I am realizing that I really need to ensure my health comes first and that these habits help me get more out of the rest of my day.
Needless to say, it’s been a busy week and everything I do creates more thoughts of what I want to keep doing. As I head into the weekend, I’m going to be reflecting on the last month and starting to plot the course for my future. Stay tuned to see how it turns out.
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