Well folks, it is day two of “the experiment.” Once again I’ll sketch some of the post for tomorrow and then I’ll go to bed. In the morning I’ll flesh things out a bit and we’ll see how it turns out.
I got home from work this evening a bit after six. I worked till a little after five today because things were clicking along and I wasn’t at a good stopping place right at five.
After leaving work I drove to a little park down by the James river. I intended to take a little walk and hopefully make a few photographs as I went.
I grabbed my camera. Stuck my earphones in my ears, started my audio book, and headed off down the “walkway” (it was paved, so I don’t think you can call it a trail.)
After a hundred yards or so I encountered a dead end. So I turned around and headed back the way I came. I did stop to take a few pictures, but I was soon back at the parking lot.
As I neared my car and considered walking past it (the walkway went both ways from the parking lot) I couldn’t stop thinking of the things I needed to do when I got home. After about a ten second discussion with both of the voices in my head I decided it would probably be best head on home.
So I did. And I got a fair amount of work done once I got home.
Now its 10:30. I’m about to crawl into bed. I know that my alarm will go a bit before 6 tomorrow morning.
I also know that I’ll be working on a computer by a few minutes after 7 and will be until 5:30 tomorrow evening or so at least.
As I was thinking about that this evening I realized a couple of things.
I’m Probably Too Busy
Perhaps this isn’t the way it is supposed to be, but outside of work I have a number of other things that take a fair amount of my time.
Usually in the evenings after coming home from work I find myself once again at my computer. What I’m doing varies from day to day, but it usually has to do with one of the following things.
Farm work. I grew up on a farm. I still live on the farm. I enjoy being a part of the farm. Over the past six or seven years we’ve moved more towards agritourism. Simply put that means that we have customers who need to know exactly whats going on at the farm at any point in time. Whether that be Facebook, Instagram or our website, it usually ends up on my todo list. I really do enjoy working with my family to make farming work. My only issue with it is that it usually takes a fair amount of extra time.
Web work. Over the past six years or so I’ve slowly grown a personal list of people whose websites I manage. For some reason or other there always seems to be work that needs to be done on these sites. Whether its software updates. Content updates. Whatever. When I’m not doing other things in an evening or morning I can usually think of a couple things I should be doing for these clients. Again, I enjoy doing this, but it sure adds a fair amount of “spent time” to any given day.
There are a few other things that also show up to add to the pile almost every day, but suffice to say there always seems to be plenty to do.
It isn’t that I don’t enjoy the things I do to support the different projects I’m a part of. And being busy is definitely better than the alternative of having nothing to do. However pretty much all I do right now has to do with me sitting behind this computer screen. Most days probably something like 90% of my time awake is spent working on a computer.
I Need Something Else to Do
So… I think I need to find something else, preferably away from my computer, to do at least some of the time. If I can find something that will pique my interest sufficiently, and if I can manage my time a little better (I’m a world class procrastinator), I think it could be beneficial.
Not only would having something to focus on outside of my computer be a good break from my computer, but I bet that it would also have the side benefit of helping me do better work when I am behind my computer.
For a long time my “thing to do to unwind” was photography. It still is to some extent. I really do enjoy making photographs and editing them. The only “problem” with this is that it once again puts me right back behind my computer editing photos.
Anyway… I haven’t decided anything for sure yet. But I am considering attempting to make some changes.
Here’s hoping you spend less time than I do behind a computer.
It’s probably a good thing I’m single. I don’t know where I’d fit a girlfriend in right now… 🙂 (Although I bet I could figure that out pretty easily since that would trump just about everything else…)