It is one of those weeks where I am doing consecutive travel days, it doesn’t happen too often thankfully, because working in London when I don’t live in the south east of the country feels like hard work. I am always comforted by the fact my commute is possibly easier than for many who do live in the south east though.
However, as well as extra travel, there seems to be a bit of extra everything. Why does that happen? A few years ago I came across Laura Vanderkam and her book I Know How She Does It which is a fascinating study of the time of high earning women who happen to have children. Vanderkam’s premise is that we do all have more time than we think – each of us has 168 hours per week and a few things are true of us all. Apparently, we spend more time with our children than we tend to think – we tend to discount mornings for example, or the time spent in cars taking them places. And we generally sleep more than we tell ourselves we do. And, this is fascinating, we tend to work much less than we think we do. The key to her work is asking people to track their time for at least a week, but preferably more. It’s something I have tried to do and am tempted to for the next month or so.
Does this week just feel busy, or is it busier than usual? Do I just notice it because the travel saps energy, possibly more so than usual because I am struggling with the tail end of a virus? Or is it because I am getting stuff done, but less time means I am not getting it done perfectly? My email inbox this morning contains various correction to the notes of Monday’s meeting – not even close to perfect apparently.
So in an attempt to discover whether this is sod’s law at work actually piling everything into one week when my offspring are lounging around on holiday, or whether it just feels like that, I think I need to write it all down for a few weeks.
Meanwhile – need more coffee.
Thinking quietly 