20 for 2020: week 39
Week 39: Week of 21 September
What did I want to do better this week?
Go for a walk in the afternoon after work. Plan my week and my days better to include a firm pack up and shut down time.
So, how did that go then?
Walking after work every day was something I did when I worked at home every day because, no longer having the commute to the office, I had extra time to do that. It was a nice and relaxing way to shift from “work” mode to “me” mode. I lost that a bit when my uni work got a bit more intense and I started staying in work mode for longer. I guess one of the downsides of working from home is that it can get harder to have that separation between work and home, especially when there’s a massive computer monitor on the space that used to be free space for me to do whatever I felt like creating. Which was usually a bit pile of stuff that I hadn’t sorted. Hardly conducive to creation, but that’s my excuse . . .
This week started well. I walked on Monday and Tuesday but on Wednesday I had to go into the office under the new edict that requires us to be there a minimum of two days a week. So the bus trip home has sort of taken the place of the walk for two days. It’s okay because it’s still a break between work and home, especially if I use the time to read rather than scroll social media mindlessly.
And there is an advantage of being in the office: as long as people don’t thoughtlessly book meetings in lunch time, I do go out of the office and get away from my desk, which is something I struggled to do at home.
On Friday it rained and I wimped out of going out. And I didn’t do it on Saturday. On Sunday, I was already out so I was technically walking, but didn’t go for a walk as such. I think I’ll give that a tick.
This week’s reading. Highly recommended.
On to 20 for 2020
This week was still all about uni (thing 8). As of the end of this week there are three weeks before I have to hand the report in and I still feel no sense of urgency about it. I’ve been a bit disappointed that I haven’t had more of a response from people about the project but I keep reminding myself that what actually happens in the project isn’t what’s gong to be assessed: it’s the learning I get from it and how well I can use the material we’ve been learning to explain what happened.
We had our final virtual classroom this week and it doesn’t feel quite real that it’s this close to the end of the course. This time 12 months ago (almost to the day) I was struggling with writing a 1500 word essay for the very first assignment of the course and here I am doing the workplace project I’d imagined doing before I even got accepted into the program. Well, sort of. The project I imagined would have been huge and not doable within the six weeks I have/had to do it.
I also did my September monthly review from Unravel Your Year (thing 22).
What did I achieve this week?
My regular check in: I’m keeping up to date with my weekly photo journal and my street corners project.
Apart from that, I don’t think I achieved much.
I tell a lie. I was in a coffee shop during the week and realised too late I had left my wallet at home. I’d always wondered if I should set up Apple Pay on my phone but wasn’t sure how it worked and was too nervous about getting it wrong and looking stupid to try.
I now know how it works and it is on my phone. And the lady in the coffee shop said she didn’t know how it worked either so was very tolerant of me not being sure what to do.
What didn’t go so well?
I think the weekly planning, scheduling focus time blocks and the packing up on time fall into this heading. Again.
What do I want to do better next week?
I’m starting to think that my quest to improve my planning and stick to the schedule is heading in the wrong direction. It’s not working. It comes up every week as “what I didn’t do well” and “what I want to do better”. It’s getting boring. I’m not making any progress or improvement.
They do say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, a quote which has apparently been incorrectly attributed to Albert Einstein for many years, so I think it’s time to try a different approach. That will be my focus next week.
Sunday photowalk. The former ABC building destined for demolition.
Summary for the week
• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 12 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20)
• Things I progressed: 2 (8, 22)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (7, 11, 13, 17)
• Things not started: 4 (9, 12, 19, 21)
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 4
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 0
• Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5): 5
• Days I went for a walk in the afternoon (Goal = 5): 5
• Days I was in bed by 10.30 (Goal = 7): 64
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