For the past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about the time I spend on the webternetz and what I do here.
I think I’ve been thinking about it so much because time has been so scarce, and oftentimes I turn to my laptop as soon as Maverick starts one of his (too-brief) naps. I tap out a couple of emails, comment on a blog, and voila! he’s awake again and I got NO writing done. I am often tired, and overwhelmed with the state of my filthy and cluttered house, and I have all these story ideas and not enough time to work on any of them.
Time. How to make more of it. How to make the best use of what I have.
The surest way to get me to cry these days is to talk about writing routines, or the writing life, and how it’s so simple to just stay up an hour later and/or wake up an hour earlier, or that it’s so easy if you just turn off the flippin’ internet. And I know I’m not doing as good of a job managing time as I could be doing. I know I can do better. Maybe it starts with turning off the flippin’ internet. After all, going down to one blog post a week has definitely helped. I haven’t been nearly so diligent with commenting on other blogs, and I’ve even been letting some emails go into the archives without responses.
What else is there to do? Envying people with more free time: NOT productive.
Daydreaming of my college years when sleep was negotiable, exercise a given, and I was sometimes actually bored: NOT productive.
Taking a deep breath, and remembering that the baby haze does end at some point? It helps. Just a little. But it helps.
Also, going to bed earlier would help, because everything’s easier when I’m well-rested. Sleep. The pessimism fix.
Beth Hull 
Yes! Go to bed earlier if you can. I don’t even have a newborn and it helps. Also, cut yourself some slack. You ARE nurturing the future, after all (perhaps a future president–or, you know, some such). Not commenting on other blogs? Right on! Be selfish, even if you don’t want to call it selfishness. Call it–the light at the end of the tunnel-ness stuff. It’s not easier to stay up an hour later. That’s a good one to never forget. And now: I shall go and eat a pumpkin macaron and take a nap with my son. Wow. Didn’t mean to make a rhyme…Love the gopher with the sleeping mask. Are you sure you don’t have time to make gopher tee shirts?
T-shirts would be pretty awesome, huh? I’ll save that project for when Maverick’s a little older. Or at least until after the holidays. (Hey, he’ll be a little older then, huh? Cool.)
I agree with PB Rippey – don’t feel like you have to comment on other blogs!
Thanks, Maggie. You two are forgiving! Know that I’m often reading them, even if I’m not taking the time to think up brilliant comments!
Sorry, I missed this post update somehow. 😦
I wasn’t ignoring you, I swear!
1) love the pic
2) take some ME time (I mean, YOU time, not say, D-chan time, as if you need another baby, albeit a grown-up one)
3) sleeping earlier sounds great, but is harder than it sounds. I always *mean* to sleep earlier, but then lie in bed wide awake and thinking I could be doing other things other than failing to sleep)
4) internet is the devil. Seriously.
Haha, you missed this one because I didn’t post it to Facebook or Twitter – it was too whiny & I didn’t want anyone to read it, but stubbornly felt like if I say I’m going to post every Friday, I better post every Friday. Next time, I probably won’t post, rather than posting something I hate.
Smiling at your 2) comment. 🙂