I always write myself a list of things to do in a day that’s so long I’d never get all of them done in a year. Yet the next time I make my to do list it’s just as long.
I’m trying to switch to making a “brain dump” list and then pick 3 things from there as my “to do.” It’s really hard to stick to my limit of 3. And if I get one done to I find I want to add a new thing so items 3 again, but that defeats the purpose of the limit.
I watch a tv show on my phone. I know it goes against all the traditional advice, blue light is bad for sleep, blah blah blah. For me, it means I can get 7 or 8 hours of sleep instead of 3.
I don’t watch just any tv though. It has to: 1. Be a show I know well enough where I can tell which character is speaking when I’m only listening. 2. Have a good amount of seasons (8 or more) so I don’t get to where I’ve memorized the episodes and my mind starts to wander. 3. Is one I know in general what’s gonna happen with the characters (so I don’t have to stay up and find out what happens) but isn’t one I love so much that I can’t stop watching. And 4. Doesn’t have a bunch of nonverbal stuff that’s important to the plot.
I have a sleep headband with little speakers in it so it doesn’t keep my partner up. When I’m ready for bed, I make sure my screen brightness is turned all the way down, I put on my sleep headphones, and I lay down and close my eyes to listen to the show. Usually I can fall asleep in less than an hour, as long as I keep my eyes closed. Otherwise I get caught up watching the show and before I know it I’ve watched 3 episodes and I’m still awake.
The Car Song - The Cat Empire
It’s funny because last week I was listening to this song again and thinking about 15 years ago me hearing this song for the first time. And how much it resonated with me because I totally related to the “I really need to buckle down and apply myself but something always distracts me and crap now it’s Monday again where did time go” undercurrent in this song.
I hate it even more now that I have to force my daughter to do it. Truth.
I like the scrap paper idea. So simple. She gets 20 minutes of free time when we get home and then we get started. All of her work for now is on paper worksheets, and she hates writing. I’m looking forward to when it becomes electronic assignments just so we can use voice to text.
That would be amazing. We’ve been fairly lucky so far - up until now it’s just been reading (which she loves to do) and spelling words to practice (which she usually gets through in about 5 minutes). This year it’s still usually just those, plus the occasional work that she didn’t finish during class.
But last week she was sick 3 days so we’ve been trying to slog through a pile of makeup work and I realized we may need some more tools in our homework box before she gets to middle school.
I struggle with this as well. Sometimes I let myself go into what I call “if you give a mouse a cookie” mode and do the things as they pop into my mind instead of following the list. It’s nice to not have to spend energy trying to keep my brain on task.
But usually I try to stick to my list. Things get on the list because either there’s an imminent deadline or it’s been bothering me and taking up too much of my mental bandwidth.