How do you pick what you want to focus on? I mean, seriously – there are so many things I want to do, and help Q with, and I have no idea how to fit it all in.
Right now I’m trying to fit in – in addition to working-from-home-mostly-full-time:
- improving my French – mostly this involves the Duolingo app. My French is pretty abysmal for someone who took it for 13 or so years through elementary and high school;
- reading more – like actual books. I’m doing the Toronto Public Library’s reading challenge again this year and while I’m doing okay, I’d like to be more consistent with it. For example, I haven’t read anything not work related in the last two weeks. I’d like to work it in;
- cross-stitching – it’s fun and calming. Mostly it’s calming. I found an awesome group on facebook to stitch with and they have little games and competitions and while that helps me stitch more it also sometimes ups my anxiety. Thankfully they’re pretty laid back and chill and if I have to drop out of something there is no problem. I’m also VERY careful to follow through on the ones that actually require preparation and participation though;
- helping Q learn Morse Code – I’m not sure how much he wants to do this but we’ve worked our way up to E (and also SOS and the letter T);
- 2 x 10 minutes of my mindfulness app a day – why twice a day? The app is Calm and it has a “daily calm” of about 10 minutes on a different topic each day. Then it has different series that you can work through – right now I’m listening to a series called “relationship with self.”
- moving more – hard to do when we’re in a state of emergency I think; but we’ll try.
One of the benefits of not being at home right now is I can at least ignore most of the “housekeeping” stuff – no cleaning, no yard work etc. I am still doing laundry but less really. Also no piano to make me feel guilty for not practising!
So let’s see:
- 10-20 minutes for Duolingo;
- 20-30 minutes for Calm;
- 30-60 minutes for reading;
- 30-60 minutes of cross-stitching;
- 30-60 minutes of moving more;
- 30-60 minutes of helping Q with school, games, Morse Code etc
- 6.5 hours of work (M – F)
- 7 hours of sleep (ideally)

At the high end of everything and assuming some buffer for changing activities and that equals 19 hours. Plus eating and showering. I’m gonna try this schedule for this week or two. It has the decided benefit of being easily marked down as “yes or no” – isn’t that the hallmark of a “SMART” goal?

- Specific – yes
- Measurable – yes
- Attainable – not sure
- Relevant – well, relevant to me
- Time-bound – trying for a week, hopefully two and then I’ll see how I’m feeling about it all.
Wish me luck!
What are you choosing to focus on? One or two things or 50bazillion like I’m trying to do?