When I first glanced at today's task - evaluate your commitments I had a visceral reaction. The thought that went through my head was "eliminate commitments...there are more things I NEED to be adding...I am not doing ENOUGH!" I have very few angst free nights when I go to sleep feeling like I accomplished all I wanted to do in the day. So I read the article attached to today's task to get a sense of the life commitment areas I need to be evaluating. I have decided to go through them quite literally:
Work/Side Work: Work and side work are 2 things I have difficulty separating. I am not the type of person who enjoys working one 40 hour a week job. At one point in the past year, I had 3 part time jobs in addition to my other life commitments. I did simplify this year by cutting back on one job. The job that I eliminated this year was my private practice. I had mixed feelings about closing it however I was relieved by the decision. I had taken on too much and the other commitments in my life were suffering as a result. Something had to give. For me, work needs to be meaningful, serve a purpose and involve my 5 core values (balance, connections, creativity, play and love). Currently I work part time as the clinical director of a therapeutic social skills program for kids with emotional and behavioral disorders. I love what I do. I love being a supervisor to staff who love to work with kids and I love helping families in crises. I also teach one psychology course a semester at a local private college. I enjoy teaching too because I get to convey my passion. The problem with my quest for meaningful work is I have a "new idea" for a job/business like every other week. This week's was a breakfast spot in the White Mountains of NH. I also have half a business plan written for a non-profit therapeutic sewing program for DV survivors and then there is the toddler art group that I started at my house this past summer and having been thinking of turning into a business.
Family: My immediate family consists of my husband, my 2 year old son and our 11 year old cat. My mother, father and in-laws all live out of state so we do not have a lot of local support aside from friends and our babysitting co-op. I stay home 3 days a week but am switching that next month to working three and staying home two. In theory, this arrangement is supposed to give me "more time" to prep for my class as well as do things like go to the gym occasionally, get to a doctor's appointment, and maybe get some housework done. At home, I cook 95% of the meals. I do the food shopping, most days pick up our vegetable share, and do the laundry. I love cooking and love getting really creative with what ingredients I have in my fridge and pantry. There is an ongoing joke in my house (sometimes its funny and at others downright irritating) that my toddler uses the vacuum more than I do. It is no secret that I hate to clean. I do my best to keep things tidy. My husband handles the finance and the garbage. Numbers is somethings else I suck at. I just hate garbage. I also arrange my son's appointments but other than that my husband and I are great parents. We share bath-time, pick up/drop off at daycare, feeding, bedtime routine, playing all fairly equally. I love that about us. Don't get me wrong we get into it about how's turn is it to get up at 5am or unload the dishwasher but overall it works.
Kids: Right now I stay home with A. 3 days a week until next month when I'll go to 2. A. is a playful, high energy kid who loves to be busy. I always plan at least one A activity like toddler art group, regular play groups, trips to PEM, weekly early intervention appointments, and general playtime. I do feel like I have him watch too much television though and I need to work on that.
Civic: I belong to a local parent's group. I enjoy getting involved with their community activities like I volunteered to do face-painting last week and I try to do things when I can. I don't really do too much volunteering. I already work in a non-profit. My husband and I have a couple community garden plots that we take care of with some friends. We also belong to farming coop that we get our weekly produce from. As part of our involvement some volunteer time is required but its minimal.
Religious: Being part of a church community is important to me although we have had difficult making it to weekly church services in the past due to our son's nap schedule. We found a church we like, now its just about getting there regularly.
Hobbies: My most recent hobby is sewing. Other things I enjoy that I guess you could call hobbies are yoga and spinning. I love all three activities I just don't have the time to do them.
Home: I kind of talked about the day to day cooking, cleaning, house maintenance stuff in the family section. We have done quite a bit home improvement stuff in the past and aren't in need of much except well we have too much stuff. Some days I want to rent a dumpster and throw everything out. Too much junk, toys, old paperwork, clothes, shoes, etc. I feel guilty throwing things out because I'm sure someone could use it (you know the saying one man's junk...) but then I just don't have time to organize my junk to post on freecycle or arrange a yard sale or get my act together to donate and making a consignment appointment. Sometimes it feels too hard to de-clutter.
Online/media: Aside from checking e-mail and FB writing these posts is the most time I have spent online in a long time. I just recently started reading a couple blogs about art with toddlers. I do however watch a lot of television. I like the escape of it. There are some shows that I just generally enjoy watching and yet there are times I am just numbing out.
Here's the category I'm adding -
Self-care: I enjoy reading books - real ones with pages. I try to read a chapter a night before bed. It helps me sleep. Before I heard about this 72 days project, I purchased a book called "Simplicity Parenting" I started it last night. There will be more about that book in future posts. I am terrible at making routine doctor's appointments (dentist, PCP, dermatologist, eye doctor, etc.). I am an on-again/off-again Weight Watcher. I am currently going ha - ha. Healthy nutrition is something I need to get better at too. Then there is exercise which I don't do and I do miss yoga and spinning classes. I try to go out for girl's nights or even date nights with my husband but not as much as I would like.
After writing all this out I feel daunted. Not sure where or what to eliminate. There are too many things I wish I were doing more of. I Am open to suggestions.
Hm, this sounds familiar in a lot of ways. What I try to do is make peace with the idea that the many things I am already doing are enough--satisfying and multifaceted enough.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting that that might be an important part of any simplicity project: accepting that even though we are in a "more more more" culture, somehow figuring out what"enough" is. And that's definitely an ongoing challenge for me.
Could it be less about cutting than resisting the temptation to add?
For donations, I always donate to charities that will do a pick-up. So all I need to do is chuck whatever I want to donate in a box/bag and put it out on the driveway the night before. Easy! It has been such a book, actually. I used to drive around for months with donation stuff in my car until I could make it to the Goodwill.
ReplyDeleteWow Natalie! You definitely have a lot of great stuff going; I can see how it would be hard to filter some of it out. For me what really helped was making a list of all the things I did and then try to see where those things might be able to overlap. For example, maybe your work's toddler art group can combine with your civic's parent group to create a place for parents to take their kids and socialize with other adults. Suddenly what took up two sets of time now shares one set, and you've kept your important activities and freed up some breathing room! Anyway, just a thought!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great posts!